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AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 






PIAZZA SAX MARCO FROM THE GRAND CANAL 



AROUND THE CLOCK IN 
EUROPE 

a Crabel^equence 

BY 

CHARLES FISH HOWELL 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
HAROLD FIELD KELLOGG 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

(C&e fiifcer^ibe pxz& Cam&ti&ge 

1912 



^ N 






V 



COPYRIGHT, I912, BY CHARLES FISH HOWELL 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published October iqi2 



Q CIAH27484 



TO 
HELEN EDITH HOWELL 



Sweet the memory is to me 
Of a land beyond the sea. 

Longfellow. 



IN EXPLANATION 

The pages that follow should best account for them- 
selves, of course, but for the satisfaction of those who 
very properly require some general conception of a pro- 
ject before definitely entering upon it, the author begs 
to say that he has here sought to visualize to the reader 
the appearance and the life of these cities at the hours 
indicated, and to preserve, as well, the distinctive atmos- 
phere of each. He has endeavored to catch and present 
faithful impressions of the streets, their kaleidoscopic 
animation, and the activities and characteristics of the 
people; to touch the pen-pictures with a light overwash 
of the racial and national peculiarities that distinguish 
each, and to invest them with what insight, sympathy, 
and enthusiasm he is capable of. It is "fitting the scene 
with the apposite phrase," as Mr. Ho wells has so aptly 
described the process and as he himself has so wonder- 
fully exemplified it. A formidable undertaking? In- 
deed, yes; but there is the dictum of Mr. Browning that 
the purpose swells the account. 

These, then, are impressionistic sketches. They are of 
the moment only. It has been sought, most of all, to give 
them just that character. They have been written as 
reflecting the probable observations and emotions of 
visitors of normal enthusiasm during these hours and in 



x IN EXPLANATION 

these environs. Under such conditions, it is well to 
remember, every active mind has its sudden, drifting 
excursions afield; something in the visible, present sur- 
roundings whimsically invokes the subtle genii of 
Memory and Imagination, and one is whisked off in a 
breath, and without rhyme or reason, to the most ul- 
timate and alluring Isles of Thought. These swift and 
scarcely accountable flights are the common experience 
of all travelers, and the author has felt it to be a part of 
his task to take proper cognizance of them. 

Travel is generally conceded to be one of the most 
informing and diverting of engagements, and to gain in 
both particulars in proportion to the favorableness of 
the conditions under which it is prosecuted. It is, there- 
fore, a satisfaction to be in position to afford readers 
advantages scarcely obtainable elsewhere. Discarding 
conventions of time and space, the author undertakes 
to give them twelve consecutive happy hours in Europe, 
— once around the clock, — always endeavoring to 
secure the most favorable union of hour and place. And 
though there may be dissent from his judgment con- 
cerning the superiority of this combination or that, 
there can hardly be two opinions as to the perfection of 
the transportation facilities. The latter eliminate time 
and space, and convey the reader from city to city and 
from point to point, with no discomfort or inconvenience 
whatever, and without the loss of so much as a tick of 
the watch. 



IN EXPLANATION xi 

With foot in the stirrup, it may be added that there 
has been an earnest desire to entertain those whom cir- 
cumstances have hitherto kept at home, as also to 
revive to memory golden recollections for travelers 
who have already passed along these pleasant ways. 
What is here offered is just a new portfolio of sketches 
from Nature; the touch of another but reverent hand 
on the old and well-loved scenes. Surely there can be no 
better reason for any book than a desire to share with 
others the happiness experienced by 

The Author. 



CONTENTS 



EDINBURGH — 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. . • 1 

ANTWERP — 2 p.m. to 3 p.m 33 

ROME — 3 p.m. to 4 p.m 69 

PRAGUE — 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. 101 

SCHEVENINGEN — 5 p.m. to 6 p.m 135 

BERLIN— 6 p.m. to 7 p.m 153 

LONDON — 7 p.m. to 8 p.m 183 

NAPLES — 8 p.m. to 9 p.m 215 

HEIDELBERG —9 p.m. to 10 p.m 249 

INTERLAKEN — 10 p.m. to 11 p.m 273 

VENICE — 11 P.M. TO MIDNIGHT 299 

PARIS — MIDNIGHT TO 1 A.M 329 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Piazza San Marco from the Grand Canal (page 305) Frontispiece u 

Edinburgh Castle 1 ^ 

Edinburgh, Princes Street 4 ^ 

The Whole Family * . . . 33 ^ 

Antwerp, from the Scheldt 42 ^ 

In the Gardens of the Vatican 69 ^ 

Rome, The Piazza di Spagna 90 v ' 

The Pulverturm . . ... . . . . . 101 l "" 

Prague, The Castle from the Old Bridge .... 108 v 

Dutch Girls are always Knitting 135 v 

scheveningen beach . . 140 ^ 

In the Sieges-Allee 153 '*'' 

Berlin, Unter den Linden 160 '^ 

Trafalgar Square 183 ^ 

London, St. Paul's from under Waterloo Bridge . . 212 ^ 
Margherita 215 ^ 



xvi ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Bay of Naples . . . . . . ' . . . 220 

A Heidelberg Student 249 

Heidelberg, From the Castle Terrace .... 252 v 

Down from the Mountain 273 v 

Interlaken, On the Hotel Lawn . . . . . . 282 " 

Piazza San Marco 299^ 

Venice, Grand Canal from the Piazzetta . . . . 304 l 

A Gargoyle of Notre Dame 329 V 

Paris, On the Boulevard . . . . . . 334 y 



EDINBURGH 

1 P.M. TO 2 P.M. 





vr 



-i rm 









AROUND THE CLOCK 
IN EUROPE 

EDINBURGH 

1 P.M. TO £ P.M. 

Up there on the gusty heights of Edinburgh no one ever 
inquires the time at one o'clock in the afternoon. Pre- 
cisely at the second, a ball flutters to the top of the Nel- 
son flagstaff on Calton Hill and a cannon booms from 
a battery at Castle Rock; and watches are then set by 
merchants all over town, by shepherds on the shaggy 
Pentland Hills, and sailors on ships in the lee of Leith. 
And one o'clock is the very best time Edinburgh could 
have fixed upon to encourage her people to look up and 
about and behold her at her finest. It is luncheon-hour, 
and when the sun is kindly, " Auld Reekie " is just about 
as garish and stimulating as it is possible for a town of 
such dignified traditions and questionable climate ever 
to become. The air freshens in from blustering Leith, 
and fair Princes Street wears its most beguiling smiles. 
One thrills with the joy of being alive in so brave and 
bonny a world, with the bluebells and heather of Old 
Scotland about him and this town of song and story 
at his feet. He gazes at the cheerful crowds moving 



4 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

leisurely along the valley gardens elegant with statues 
and flowered lawns, or across at the frowzy heads in 
rickety garret windows away up among the palsied 
gables of ancient High Street, and he knows that over 
there is the Canongate of stern tradition and the 
storied St. Giles' and black Holyrood, and beyond them 
he sees the Salisbury Crags, a gaunt palisade halfway up 
to lofty Arthur's Seat. He has just arrived, perhaps, 
with the glow on his face of all he has read and heard 
of this famed place, and the bugles are singing on Castle 
Hill and the Edinburgh bells are ringing. 

There is little opportunity for preliminary impres- 
sions while arriving. The train darts up a valley be- 
fore you have finished with the suburban cottages of 
the laboring men, and with an ultimate shriek of relief 
abruptly dives into its cave, as it were, and deposits 
you unceremoniously in the esplanaded Waverley Sta- 
tion, with flowered walks above and a market just at 
hand. The wise traveler gathers up his luggage and 
fares eagerly forth to Princes Street, as a matter of 
course. There, on the way to his hotel, he finds a good 
part of Edinburgh idling pleasantly after luncheon, for 
Princes Street is the dear delight of the loiterer be he 
old or young, Robin or Jean. He is studied as he passes 
through the crowds, curiously, smilingly, critically, 
tolerantly. His clothing may excite disapproval, his 
baggage amusement, and his intentions speculation. 
Curiosity "takes the air" at noon. Arrived in a moment 



— ■ - ~ ': ~ 




EDINBURGH, PRINCES STREET 



EDINBURGH 5 

at a Princes Street hotel and duly registered, he is handed 
a curious disk of white cardboard the size of an after- 
dinner coffee-cup's top, upon which is blazoned the 
number of the room to which he has just been assigned. 
Preceded by a chambermaid gowned in black and 
aproned in white and followed by a porter with his traps, 
he advances grandly to his quarters, according to the 
tag, and hurries to a window for his first keen impres- 
sion of the "Modern Athens." 

: Just why it should be called an "Athens" would 
scarcely be apparent from a Princes Street hotel window. 
The literary rights to the title might be conceded, but 
the stranger will need to view the town from some neigh- 
boring height to appreciate the physical similarity be- 
tween the two cities and to observe the suggestiveness 
of the Castle and the reminder of the Acropolis in the 
"ruin "-crowned summit of Calton Hill. What he does 
see from his window is sufficiently inspiring. At his 
feet stretches Princes Street which he has heard called 
the finest avenue in Europe, and along its other side 
terraces of vivid turf, set with shade trees and statues 
and flowered walks, drop down in graceful steps to the 
lawns in the bottom of the valley that was once the 
North Loch's basin and where now, to Edinburgh's 
chagrin, are the railroad tracks. Across these gardens 
vaults a boulevard styled "The Mound," and on their 
farther side is the gray old Castle on its precipitous 
crag with a soft sweep of green braes at its base. On 



6 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

the Castle side of the valley the far-famed High Street 
turns the venerable backs of its tall, tottering, weather- 
blackened rookeries on the frivolity of Princes Street, 
and scornfully gives its laundry to the breeze in hun- 
dreds of heaped and crooked gable-windows. Centu- 
ries before any of us were born those fantastic and 
whimsical family nests were lined up as we see them 
to-day. One could fancy them a row of colossal, pre- 
historic giraffes with their tails all our way, nibbling 
imaginary tree-tops on High Street. The stranger will 
lean out of his window and look down Princes Street 
and start with delight to see that "sublimest monu- 
ment to a literary genius," the lace-like Gothic spire 
to Scott, where, under a springing canopy of arches 
and aspiring needles studded with statues of the im- 
mortal characters he created, sits the great Sir Walter 
himself in snowy Carrara, with his favorite hound 
at his feet. And one's heart warms to this romantic 
Edinburgh so beloved of him and of the fiery Burns, 
the passionate Chalmers, the gentle Allan Ramsay, 
and Jeffrey of the brilliant "far-darting" criticisms. 
Here, in their time, mused Robert Fergusson and 
David Livingstone and Smollett and Hume and Gold- 
smith and De Quincey and "Kit North" and Carlyle; 
and but yesterday has added the name of Stevenson, not 
the least loved of them all. What inspiration this re- 
gion must have kindled to have given to Art such sons 
as Gordon, Drummond, Nasmyth, Wilkie, Raeburn, 



EDINBURGH 7 

and Faed ! Could the roster of old Greyfriars Burying- 
Ground be called, one would marvel at the number of 
great names there memorialized that are familiar and 
beloved to the remotest, out-of-the-way corners of the 
earth. And so the new arrival closes his window more 
slowly than he raised it and steals reverently down into 
the street to meet this Edinburgh face to face. 

You might think, to hear Americans talk at home, 
that every other Edinburgh man carries a dirk or a 
claymore under a tartan and wears a ferocious red beard 
like the pictures of Rob Roy; that people go about in 
plaid shawls and tarn o'shanters, and that most society 
functions end up with a Highland fling. One may see 
at wayside railroad stations, as in our own country, 
wild, hair-blown lassies with flaming cheeks running in 
from the hills to have a look at the train; but with some 
such mild exception, if it is one, the Scots on their 
native heath are, of course, precisely what we are used 
to elsewhere. Types apart, the man of the streets of 
Edinburgh looks entirely familiar — shrewd and com- 
bative, rugged and perhaps hard, slouchy and indifferent 
in the matter of dress, hobnailed and be-capped. There 
is something tremendously genuine and wholesome 
about him. He is merry and brisk and lively, often; 
but you would not call him ever quite gay — at least 
with that sparkle that dances in the eyes you look into 
on the Paris boulevards. You could scarcely, for in- 
stance, imagine a Scotchman singing a barcarolle! 



8 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Best of all they are honest and sincere, and one takes 
to them at once. Here are the lassies and laddies you 
have long sung about, fresh-faced and debonair. Cheer- 
ful fearlessness shines out of their frank blue eyes, and 
they look to dare all things and be utterly unafraid. 
The square foreheads of the older men, the austere 
cheek bones and strong chins, unscroll history to the 
observer and make him think of savage broils along the 
border, of fierce finish-fights throughout the wild High- 
lands, and of the deathless Grays of Waterloo. You may 
defeat a Scotchman, but he will never admit it, and if 
he is all-Scotch he will not even know it. They are 
brave, witty, and devoted, and many a person will take 
issue with Swift for finding their conversation "hardly 
tolerable," and with Lamb for pronouncing their "tedi- 
ousness provoking" and for giving them up in despair 
of ever learning to like them. 

The new arrival plunges into Princes Street, accepts 
inspection good-naturedly, and soon feels entirely at 
home. He may even find the day bright and cheerful, 
in spite of apprehension over the dictum of Stevenson 
that this climate is "the vilest under heaven." The 
street is quite unusual — one side a terraced valley, the 
other a splendid line of shops, clubs, and hotels, with 
gay awnings. Paris and London novelties fill the win- 
dows. A throng of vehicles bustles up and down — 
motor-busses, double-decked trolley cars, taxicabs, hired 
Victorias, two-wheeled carts, brewery wagons, station 



EDINBURGH 9 

lorries, tourists' chars-a-bancs with drivers in scarlet 
liveries, private carriages and bicycles. The stream of 
people on either pavement is of the holiday cheeri- 
ness that comes with the luncheon recess from office 
and shop, though here and there one may occasion- 
ally discover some "sour-looking female in bomba- 
zine " that recalls R. L. S.'s "Mrs. McRankin" and 
who appears as ready as she to inquire whether we 
attend to our "releegion." The restaurants are plying 
a brisk trade, contenting their tarrying guests, speeding 
the parting and hailing the coming. Whole coveys of 
pretty shop-girls with brilliant cheeks, wholesome and 
vivacious, come chattering and laughing out of tea- and 
luncheon-rooms and flutter back to work with frequent 
enthusiastic stops before alluring windows. Workmen 
in tweed caps and clerks in straw hats pass by, to or 
from their occupations, and always with lingering looks 
toward the Princes Street Gardens, so that one can 
accurately guess whether they are coming from or go- 
ing to office by applying the reliable Shakespearean 
formula — 

"Love goes to Love as schoolboys from their books, 
And Love from Love to school with heavy looks." 

The air is rhythmic with the up-and-down slur of this 
speech of "aye" and "na." Curious faces flash past. 
Threadbare lawyers argue pompously as they saunter 
back arm in arm toward Parliament Close, and the 



10 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

ruddy-cheeked girls, by contrast, seem so distracting 
that a foreigner rages at the sentiment that "kissing is 
out of season when the gorse is out of bloom. " Occasion- 
ally, even at so early an hour, there is evidence of the 
passion for drink. " Willie brew 'd a peck o* maut " flashes 
to mind, and one fancies the unsteady ones are trying 
to hum, "We are na fou, we're no that fou, but just a 
drappie in our ee." When night comes on, sober men 
in the streets have reason to frown censoriously; and if 
it be a Saturday night, they may even feel lonesome. 

A passing regiment is a welcome interruption and a 
brave spectacle. It is always hailed with shouts of joy. 
All Edinburgh turns in its bed Sunday mornings at 
nine to see the Black Watch come out from the Castle 
for "church parade" at St. Giles's. Nothing stirs 
Princes Street on any week day like a military display. 
It is a thrilling moment to a stranger, perhaps, when he 
has his first glimpse of a young Tommy Atkins, and he 
stops stock-still to take in the bright scarlet, tailless 
jacket, the tight trousers, the "pill-box" perilously 
cocked over an ear, and the inevitable "swagger cane" 
with which he slaps his leg as he braves it along. But 
what is that to the passing of a company of Highlanders ! 
Along they come, kilts and plaids, sporrans swinging, 
claymores rattling, and jolly Glengarry bonnets poised 
rakishly to the falling point. Ten pipers are droning 
and three drummers are pounding; and one watches, as 
they pass, for the holly sprig, or what-not, they wear in 



EDINBURGH 11 

their bonnets as a badge of the clan. The best show is 
made by the King's Highlanders from up Balmoral way; 
and splendid they are in royal Stuart tartan, with the 
oak leaf and thistle in their bonnets and each man carry- 
ing a Lochaber axe. If there is anything more inspiriting 
than cheery bagpipe music at such a time, no one to 
laugh foolishly at it and every one to love it, and the men 
stepping proudly and the crowd applauding, — I, for 
one, do not know it. 

Keenness of impressions, as we all know, may depend 
on the most trivial circumstances of time and place. I 
recall, for example, a sharp and thrilling musical ex- 
perience in Scotland, with the instrument nothing more 
than the despised and humble mouth-organ. Perhaps 
it was the mood, perhaps the setting, perhaps the un- 
expectedness of it; there was so little and yet so much. 
At all events, I shall not soon forget the sparkle and stir 
of "The British Grenadiers" as it ripped the sharp night 
air of quiet Melrose to the approach of three English 
soldiers, one with the mouth-organ and the others 
whistling in time as they marched briskly along. I shall 
always remember the rhythmic beat of their feet as they 
swung across the murky, deserted square, the loudness, 
the thrill, and the lilt of that historic melody, and the 
flicker of a lamp in a window here and there and the 
pleasant sting of the keen night air. 

There is no better place for a stranger to "get his 
bearings " in Edinburgh than out on that valley-spanning 



12 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

boulevard they call "The Mound." He then has the Old 
Town to one side and the New Town to the other, and 
on opposite corners, as if to maintain the balance, the 
Castle and Calton Hill. He also takes note of the sev- 
eral bridges that clamp the town together, as it were; 
and he may look down into the gardens before him and 
watch the children playing as far as the promenade- 
covered Waverley Station, or he may turn and look the 
other way and see quite as many more all the way along 
the pleasant green to the old battle-scarred West Kirk 
of St. Cuthbert's where De Quincey lies in his quiet 
grave. Thus he will find himself of a sunny afternoon 
between the pleasant horns of a most agreeable dilemma. 
He must choose whether to spend his first hour in the 
New Town or the Old. If he remembers what Ruskin 
said he will fly from the New; but then he may go there, 
after all, if he recalls the opinion of the old skipper cited 
by Stevenson, whose most radiant conception of Para- 
dise was "the New Town of Edinburgh, with the wind 
the matter of a point free." He must decide whether 
his present inclination is for latter-day city features, like 
conventional streets lined with substantial gray stone 
buildings looking all very much alike, for the fashion- 
ables of Charlotte Square and Moray Place and the 
bankers and brokers of St. Andrew Square, or the his- 
toric ground of crowded old High Street and the Castle 
and Holy rood. He would find in the New Town some 
old places, too, for it is one hundred and fifty years old, 



EDINBURGH 13 

and there are the literary associations of the last cent- 
ury and the house on Castle Street where Scott lived 
more than a quarter-century — "poor No. 39," as he 
called it in his Journal — and wrote the early Waverley 
Novels, and rejoiced along with his mystified friends in 
the tremendous success of "The Great Unknown." He 
would find it a rapidly modernizing city; no longer may 
the children salute the lamplighter on his nightly rounds 
with "Leerie, Leerie, licht the lamps!" But he would 
find the most interesting things there the oldest things, 
and they all in the Antiquarian Museum — and what a 
show! John Knox's pulpit, the banners of the Coven- 
anters, the "thumbikins" that "aided" confession and 
the guillotine "Maiden" that rewarded it, the pistols 
Robert Burns used as an exciseman, and the sea-chest 
and cocoanut cup of Alexander Selkirk, the real Robinson 
Crusoe; and there, too, is Bonnie Prince Charlie's blue 
ribbon of the Garter and the ring Flora Macdonald gave 
him when they parted. If historic paraphernalia is al- 
luring, however, the scenes of its associations are much 
more so; and our friend would doubtless hesitate no 
longer, but turn to the Old Town and trudge up the 
steep way to the Castle. 

"You tak' the high road 
And I '11 tak' the low road, 
And I'll get to Scotland afore ye"; — 

and if the song had kept to geography it would probably 
have added, "And we'll meet at the bonny Castle o' 



14 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Auld Reekie." Such, at least, has been a Scotch custom 
for thirteen hundred years ; and with every reason. 
Through the long and cruel centuries it has gathered to 
its flinty gray bosom memories of every possible phase 
of national mutation, desperate or glorious, gloomy or 
gay. One approaches it with awe. So long has it gripped 
the summit of that impregnable rock, half a thousand 
feet sheer on three of its sides, that it has blended into 
the life and color of its foundations, like a huge chame- 
leon, until one could scarcely say where rock leaves off 
and castle begins. A stern and pitiless object, tolerating 
only here and there a grassy crevice at its base, and a 
clinging tree or two. In the great "historic mile" of 
High Street, lifting gradually from Holyrood to this 
rugged elevation, one feels the illusion of an enormous 
scornful finger extended dramatically westward toward 
the traditional rival, Glasgow. There is no need to see 
Highland regiments drilling on its broad esplanade, or 
to enter its sally-port or penetrate the dungeons in its 
rocky depths to have confidence that the royal regalia of 
"The Honours of Scotland" are safe enough here, on the 
red cushions in their iron cage. One enters, and there 
settles upon him a feeling of sharing in every grim tra- 
dition since the doughty days "when gude King Robert 
rang." It is not a visit; it is an initiation. 

Quite worthy of this savage stronghold is the inspir- 
ing outlook from its parapets over hills and rivers and 
storied glens. One turns impatiently from "Mons 



EDINBURGH 15 

Meg," which may have been a big gun in some past 
day of little ones, to gaze afar over the carse of Stirling 
and the trailing silver links of the Forth to where the 
snow shines in the clefts of Ben Ledi, or out over the 
Pentland Hills where the "Sweet Singers" awaited the 
Judgment. The sportsman will think of the grouse- 
shooting at Loch Earn; the sentimentalist will re- 
flect that when night settles over Aberdeenshire the 
pipers will strike up . their strathspeys and there will be 
Scotch reels by torchlight. Scotland seems unrolled at 
your feet and Scottish songs rush to mind until you 
fairly bound the region in verse and story : To the north 
and northwest, " Bonnie Dundee," the glens of "Clan 
Alpine's warriors true," Bannockburn and " Scots 
wha hae wi' Wallace bled," and "The Banks of Allan 
Water"; to the north and east, the Firth of Forth 
where the fishwives' "puir fellows darkle as they face the 
billows"; to the west and southwest, "The banks and 
braes o' bonnie Doon," " Tarn o'Shanter's " land, " Sweet 
Afton" and "Bonnie Loch Leven" whence "the Camp- 
bells are comin' "; and to the south, "The braes of Yar- 
row," "Norham's castled steep, Tweed's fair river, broad 
and deep, and Cheviot's mountains lone," and, most 
sung of all, "The Border": — 

"England shall, many a day, tell of the bloody fray 
When the blue bonnets came over the border." 

The afternoon sun rests brightly on the pretty glen 



16 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

in the foreground where lie the dismal, bat-flown ruins 
of Rosslyn Castle, loopholed for archers and shadowed 
in ancient yews that have overhung the Esk for a 
thousand years, and on the delicate chapel of stone- 
lace where the barons of Rosslyn await the Judgment 
in full armor with finger-tips joined in prayer. And 
there, too, are the cool, dark thickets of Hawthornden, 
recalling the ever-popular 

" Gang down the burn, Davy Love, 
And I will follow thee." 

One cannot forbear a smile as he surveys the noble 
bridge that spans the Forth and recalls the insistent 
pride of Edinburgh in the same. Here is an achieve- 
ment over which all visitors are expected to exclaim in 
amazement — and engineers, I presume, invariably 
do. On this point your Edinburgh man is immovable. 
He scorns to elaborate and he will not descend to eu- 
logy. He merely indicates it with a reverent inclination 
of the head, and turns and looks you in the eye; you are 
supposed to do the rest. Personally, while I give the 
great structure its dues, which are many, I like what 
flows under it more. 

And there is one thing about the Forth that Edinburgh 
people never forget, nor do the visitors who find it out: 
"Caller herein* !" It must have taxed the resources of 
even such a genius as Lady Nairne, whose home one 
may see if he looks beyond Holyrood to the villas of 



EDINBURGH 17 

Duddingston, to have written two such dissimilar songs 
as the heart-melting "Land o' the Leal" and the cheery 
"Caller Herrin'." There's the king of all marketing 
songs. It really compels one to think with despair of 
what a dreary mockery life would be were this, of all 
harvests, to fail. For love of that song I could defend 
the Forth herring against all competitors whatsoever. 
Loch Fyne herring? Fair fish, yes; but really, now, you 
would hardly say they have that racy flavor we get in 
the Forth article. Caller salmon? Oh, pshaw, you are 
from Glasgow; you have been swearing by caller salmon 
for five hundred years; have it on your coat of arms; 
used to draw it on legal papers as other people do seals; 
— but, honestly, have you ever seen a salmon in the 
Clyde, anywhere near Glasgow, in all your life? And 
if you did, would you eat it? Certainly not! So "give 
over," as they say in England. Certainly there never 
was such pathos and unction devoted to just such a 
subject. And the music, too! How it compels you with 
its appealing monotones and rebukes you with the 
brave huckster cries on high F! So when you are pass- 
ing near Waverley Market and encounter one of the 
picturesque Scandinavian fishwives, who has trudged 
in with her "woven willow " from her little stone house 
at Newhaven with the patched roof and quaint fore- 
stairs, unless you are willing to buy a herring then and 
there and carry it around in your pocket, run for your 
life before she starts singing: — . 



18 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

"When ye were sleeping on your pillows, 
Dreamt ye aught o' our puir fellows, 
Darkling as they face the billows, 
A' to fill our woven willows ! 

"Wha'll buy caller herrin'? 
They're bonnie fish and halesome farin'; 
Buy my caller herrin', 
New drawn frae the Forth." 

To stroll down High Street is to unscroll Scottish 
history and survey Edinburgh of to-day at one and 
the same time. "Hie-gait," as the old fellows still occa- 
sionally call it, is the "historic mile" par excellence of 
Scotland. In its independent fashion it assumes new 
names as it meanders along, first Castle Hill, then Lawn- 
market, then High Street, and finally Canongate. 
Even the afternoon sun ventures guardedly among the 
nest of tall, gaunt lands that scowl at each other across 
its war-worn way. Bleak and glum to the peaked and 
gabled roofs, eight and ten stories above the sidewalk, 
they have resisted dry rot by a miracle of mortar and 
still hang together, doubtless to their own amazement, 
huddling a perfect enmeshment of tiny homes like some 
ingenious nest of boxes. It would be hard to imagine 
more drear and rickety domiciles or any more nervously 
overshadowed with an impending doom of dissolution. 
One looks anxiously about to see some venerable vete- 
ran give it up with a dismal, weary groan and collapse 
in a vast huddle of domestic wreckage. Fancy living 



EDINBURGH 19 

where you have to scale breakneck stairs to a dizzy 
height and then reach your remote eyrie by a trembling 
gangway over an air well ! The closes or wynds that are 
engulfed among these flat-chested ancients are equally 
surprising. One passes in from the street through a dirty 
entrance with a worn stone sill and a rudely carven 
door head inscribed with Scriptural and moral injunc- 
tions, and finds himself in an inner court fronted by dirty 
doors and palsied windows full of frowzy women, a 
cobbled pavement littered with refuse and a patch of 
sky half-hidden by fragments of laundry. And, mind 
you, these retreats are not without pride of tradition; 
many of them have entertained riches and royalty — 
but that was not last week. Lady Jane Grey was once 
hidden in famous White Horse Close, which must have 
fallen further than Lucifer to reach its present condi- 
tion. Douglas Tavern was in one of them, where Burns 
and his brethren of the "Crochallan Club" were wont 
to revel with "Rattlin', roarin' Willie, and amang guid 
companie." Legends, of course, abound. There was the 
case of the two stubborn sisters who quarreled one night 
and never spoke to each other again, though they lived 
the remainder of their lives together in the selfsame room. 
There's Scotch persistence! Deacon Brodie was another 
instance, the "Raffles" of his time. He it was who used 
to ply his nefarious trade by night on the friends who 
knew him by day as a highly respectable cabinet- 
worker; and if you look furtively aloft at some dusty, 



20 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

closed shutter you can fancy the dark lantern glowing 
and the file rasping and the black mask drawn to his 
chin. Happily, they hanged him eventually; and, sing- 
ularly enough, on the very gallows for which he had 
himself invented a very superior drop. 

A close, therefore, is so cheerless a spot that you could 
not well be worse off if you were to dive down the steep, 
wet steps of a neighboring slit of an alley and come out 
on the old Grassmarket of sinister renown where they 
hanged the Covenanters of the Moss Hags. As you 
gaze about on this ill-omened slum, once the home of 
many a prosperous and respected "free burgess," but 
now given over to drovers and visiting farmers, and 
peer suspiciously up the adjoining West Port where 
Burke and Hare conducted their murders to get bodies 
for the surgeons, you are very apt to beat a hurried re- 
treat and cry out with Claverhouse, " Come, open the 
West Port and let me gang free!" 

After one or two such explorations a stranger is con- 
tent to pursue his investigation in the broad light of 
High Street. It seems delightful then to watch the bare- 
footed boys in the street and the little girls in aprons and 
"pigtails." And happily he may come across a shaggy 
steely-eyed old Highlander growling to a comrade in 
the guttural Gaelic, or perhaps a soldier in kilts and 
sporan. At this hour he will certainly see around Par- 
liament Square groups of advocates and solicitors and 
"writers to the Signet," and, it may be, some judge of 



EDINBURGH 21 

the "Inner House" or "Outer House," and possibly 
the Lord President himself. Otherwise he can take note 
of the uninviting shop-windows and the piles of mer- 
chandise on the sidewalks, and find entertainment in 
such unfamiliar signs as "provisioners," "spirit mer- 
chants," "bootmakers," "hairdressers," etc., with 
prices set forth in shillings and pence, or rejoice in a 
hostelry with so unusual a name as "The Black Bull 
Lodgings for Travellers and Working Men." 

There are pleasant surprises. For instance, you find in 
the cobbled pavement the outline of a heart — and 
you do not have to be told that you are standing on the 
site of the terrible old Tolbooth prison, at the Heart of 
Midlothian. And what rushes to mind and displaces all 
other associations if not the fine story Sir Walter gave 
us under that name! Here, then, the Porteous mob 
swarmed and raged in its struggle to burn this savage 
Bastile, and here they tried and condemned poor Effie 
Deans and locked her up while the faithful Jeanie 
turned heaven and earth to save her, and the heart of 
old David broke. "The Heart of Midlothian!" Why, 
it is like being a boy all over again ! 

Encouraged by this discovery, like a man who has 
just found a gold-piece, you keep a sharp lookout on the 
pavements, and presently comes a second reward in 
the shape of a brass tablet in the ground marking the last 
resting-place of stern John Knox. "There!" say you; 
"Dr. Johnson said he ought to be buried in the public 



22 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

road, and sure enough, he is!" What a man! He dared 
all things and feared nothing. How many a long dis- 
course did Queen Mary herself supply him a topic for, 
and how often did he assail even her with personal re- 
bukes and virulent public tirades ! Thanks to the Free 
Church, his dwelling stands intact, farther down the 
street at the site of the Netherbow; and a fine specimen 
it is of sixteenth-century domestic Scotch architecture, 
with low ceilings and stairways scarce two feet wide — 
but, like its former austere tenant, narrow, cornery, 
and unpleasant. Implacable, unbending old John Knox ! 
There is nothing in Browning more shuddering in imag- 
inative flight than the quatrain : — 

"As if you had carried sour John Knox 
To the play-house at Paris, Vienna, or Munich, 
Fastened him into a front-row box, 
And danced off the ballet with trousers and tunic." 

One makes a long stop before the far-famed church 
of St. Giles, half a thousand years old and the battle- 
ground of warring creeds. Its crown-shaped tower top 
is one of the familiar landmarks of Edinburgh. Within 
you may study to heart's content the grim barrel vault- 
ing and massive ^Norman piers and the tattered Scot- 
tish flags in the nave, but there is scope for many an 
agreeable thought outside if one conjures up the little 
luckenbooth shops that once clustered between its 
buttresses, and imagines Allan Ramsay in his funny 
nightcap selling wigs, or "Jingling Geordie" Heriot, of 



EDINBURGH 23 

"The Fortunes of Nigel," gossiping with his friend King 
James VI over his jewelry counter. Nor would you for- 
get Jenny Geddes and how she seized her stool in dis- 
gust when the Dean undertook to introduce the ritual, 
and let it fly at the good man's head with the sizzling 
invective, "Deil colic the wame o' ye! Would ye say 
mass i' my lug!" 

Old Tron Kirk, farther on, is still an active feature of 
Edinburgh,life, and particularly on New Year's Eve when 
the crowds rally here as the old year dies. Beyond it 
the Canongate extends itself in a rambling, happy-go- 
lucky fashion, lined with curious timber-fronted houses 
with "turnpike" stairs. It is like sitting down to 
"Humphrey Clinker" once more; or better still, per- 
haps, to the poems of Fergusson; and we smile at 
thoughts of the scowling, early-risen housewives of other 
days who would 

"Wi' glowering eye 
Their neighbours' sma'est faults descry!" 

and fancy how the convivial revelers would foregather 

by night and 

"sit fu' snug, 
Owre oysters and a dram o' gin, 
Or haddock lug." 

But lingering along the Canongate is a negligible 
pleasure. There is nothing in the whole architectural 
world more jailish and pitiless than the gaunt Tol- 
booth and all its grim neighbors. It is as if the concep- 



24 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

tion of anything suggestive of beauty or ornamentation 
had been harshly repressed, and ugliness and the most 
naked utility sternly insisted upon. One may, how- 
ever, if he is interested Jn slums, pause a moment to 
look down through the railings of the South Bridge on 
the screaming peddlers and flaunting shame of bedrag- 
gled Cowgate, and behold a district which stands to 
Edinburgh in the relative position of Rivington Street 
to New York, or Petticoat Lane to London, or Mont- 
martre to Paris. 

The end of the Canongate, a few steps farther on, 
debouches unexpectedly, and with a sudden unpre- 
paredness for the stranger, on the great open square 
before Holyrood. There it stands, black and dismal; 
more like a prison than a palace! The Abbey ruins, in 
the rear, supply all the atmosphere of romance that the 
eye will get here. But the eye is better left as a second- 
ary aid in comprehending Holyrood; history and im- 
agination do the work. Cowering sorrowfully in its 
gloomy hollow, it has the look of a moody, forsaken 
thing brooding over a neglectful world. Its memories 
are of the dead. Its sole companionship is in the 
mosses and grassy aisles of the crumbling Abbey chapel, 
where lie the bones of Scottish royalty that ruled and 
reveled here its allotted time and left scarce a memory 
behind. It was here they slew Rizzio as he dined with 
Queen Mary; and perhaps that is romance enough. 

The fumes and cobwebs of murky tradition dissipate 



EDINBURGH 25 

in the keen, vigorous air of Calton Hill. Breezes from 
over the level shore-sands of Leith taste sharp of salt 
and excite bracing thoughts of the sea. Like a map, 
the whole environ of Edinburgh lies exposed from the 
Pentlands to the Firth. There is the steepled city, rising 
over its ridges and dropping down its valleys like bil- 
lows of a troubled ocean, and there, too, is the enveloping 
sweep of suburbs dotted with villas or cross-thatched 
with streets of workingmen's cottages, and farther still 
the Meadows and their archery grounds, "the furzy 
hills of Braid" and their golf links, Blackford Hill 
whence "Marmion" and his bard looked down on "mine 
own romantic town," and, on the southern horizon, 
the heathery Pentlands, low and shaggy, with the kine 
that graze over them low and shaggy too. To the north- 
ward, away beyond the cricket greens of Inverleith 
Park, the blue Firth sparkles in the offing, dotted with 
fleet steamers and the white spread sails of stately ships 
laying courses for the Baltic. In the distance, over 
Leith, looms the tall lighthouse of the Inchcape Rock 
that Southey made famous with a ballad. Beyond the 
west end of the city a wavy blue line marks the course 
seaward of the bustling little Water of Leith, where 
"David Balfour" kept tryst with "Alan Breck," and 
many a sturdy little "brig" leaps across it as it hurries 
along, "brimmed," wrote Stevenson, "like a cup with 
sunshine and the song of birds." Still farther to the 
westward, where the old Queens Ferry Coach Road 



26 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

appears as a faint white tracing, within many "a mile 
of Edinborough Town," thin vapors of smoke rise from 
the chimneys of white cottages on peasant greens by 
brooksides; and one knows that the rowans there are 
white with bloom and the meadows flecked with 
daisies, and that bees are droning in the foxglove and 
blackbirds singing in the hawthorn. 

Calton Hill itself scarcely improves on acquaintance, 
but loses rather. Its meagre scattering of monuments 
would barely excite a passing interest were it not for 
their conspicuous location and that suggestion of the 
Athenian Acropolis. A paltry array — a tall, ugly col- 
umn to Nelson, a choragic monument like the one to 
Burns on a hillside near Holyrood, an old observatory 
with a brown tower and a new one with a colonnaded 
portico and a dome, and, most mentioned of all, the 
so-called "ruin" of the proposed national monument to 
the Scotch dead of Waterloo and the Peninsula, which 
got no farther than a row of columns and an entabla- 
ture when funds failed and work stopped. Many a 
bitter shaft of scorn and mockery has this ill-starred 
undertaking pointed for the disparagers of Scotland. 
However, in its present condition it has done more than 
any other agency to stimulate the pleasant illusion of 
the "Modern Athens." The hill itself is a favorite re- 
sort, lofty, and with a broad, rounded top. The eastern 
slopes are terraced and set with gardens, and the western 
and northern sides are steep verdant braes. One yields 



EDINBURGH 27 

the palm for reckless daring to Both well; not every one 
would care to speed a horse down such a course even 
to win attention from eyes so bright and important as 
Queen Mary's. 

It was on Calton Hill I had my first experience of the 
old school of Scotchmen, in the person of a dry and with- 
ered chip of Auld Reekie, combative, peppery, brusque 
and sententious, and abounding in that peculiar ad- 
mixture of braggadocio and repression so characteristic 
of the class. He had evidently been nurtured from in- 
fancy on Allan Ramsay's collection of Scotch proverbs, 
for he quoted them continually, giving the poet credit 
for their origin. He was sitting in the shade of Nel- 
son's column in shirt sleeves and cap, absorbed to all 
appearances in a copy of "The Scotsman," though I 
suspect he had been regarding me for some while with 
quite as much curiosity as I now did him. He was a 
grim, self-contained old party, as dignified as the Lord 
Provost himself, with gray, shaggy eyebrows and a thin, 
wry mouth that gripped a cutty pipe; and he looked so 
much a part of the surroundings, so settled and weather- 
beaten, that one might almost have passed him over 
for some memorial carving or, at least, an "animated 
bust." Him I beheld with vast inner delight and gin- 
gerly approached, giving "Good day "with all the cor- 
diality in the world. The reward was a curt nod and a 
keen scrutiny from a pair of hard and twinkling blue 
eyes that had an appearance under the grizzled brows 



28 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

of stars in a frosty sky. I observed upon the fineness of 
the day; he opined "There had been waur, no doot." 
I noted what a capital spot it was for a quiet smoke; he 
allowed I might "gang far an' find nane better." Here 
I made proffer of a cigar and, presumably, with accept- 
able humility, for he took it with an "Ah, weel, I dinna 
mind," of gloomy resignation — and so we got things 
going. 

The conversation that followed I venture to give in 
some detail as illustrating, possibly, the peculiarities 
of a type to be encountered on every Edinburgh street 
corner — whimsical, conservative, witty, cautious in 
opinion, and surcharged with local pride. 

"A man can take life pleasantly here," said I, when 
we had lighted up. 

"Aye, aye," said he; "even a hard-workin' one like 
mysel', as Gude kens. But a bit smoke frae ane an' 
twa o' the day hurts naebody, I'm thinkin'; an' auld 
Allan Ramsay was richt eneuch, 'Light burdens break 
nae banes.'" 

" You will never be leaving Edinburgh, I '11 warrant." 

"Na, na. Ye '11 have heard tell the sayin 9 , 'Remove 
an auld tree an' it will wither.'" 

"There's more money to be made elsewhere, perhaps." 

"I'm no so sure o' that. Forbye, 'Little gear the 
less care.'" 

"One would n't find a handsomer city than this, at all 
events." 



EDINBURGH 29 

"Aweel, aweel, a'body kens that. Ye '11 no so vera 
frequently see the bate o' it, I 'm thinkin'. Them that 
should ken the best say sae." 

"How many people are there here, sir? " 
"Mare than three hunner an' fifty thoosan', I 'm telt." 
"No more? It is small for its fame. Why, Glasgow 
must be three times as large," I ventured, resolved to 
stir him up a little. 

"Glesgie, is it! Think shame o' yerseP, mon, to say 
the same! A grippie carlin, Glesgie! Waur than the 
auld wife o' the savin', * She '11 keep her ain side o' the 
hoose, and gang up an' doon in yours.' Ye canna 
nay-say me there. Gae wa' wi' ye ! " 

" But you must admit it is a great port. The receipts 
are enormous, I'm told." 

"Aye, an' it's muckle ye '11 be telt ye '11 never read in 
the Guid Buik! Port, are ye sayin'? Hae ye na thought 
o' Leith? Or the bonny sands an' gardens o' Porto- 
bello? Or Granton, forbye, wi' the three braw piers o' 
the Duke o' Buccleuch? Ye '11 no be kennin' they're 
a' a part o' Ed'nboro, maybe." 

"But how about the shipbuilding on the Clyde?" 
"An' what wad ye make o' that? How ony mon in 
his senses could gang to think sic jowkery-packery wi' 
the gran' brewin' ayont the Coogait is mair than ever 
I could win to understan'. It's by-ordinar, fair! f An' 
dinna loup to deecesions frae the claver an' lees aboot 
muckle things. 'Twas Allan Ramsay himseP said, 



30 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

'Mony ane opens their pack an' sells nae wares.' It's 
unco strange that a body should tak nae notice o' the 
learnin,' an* the gran* courts, an* the three hunner con- 
gregeetions, an* a' the bonny kirks we hae in Ed'n- 
boro, but must ever be spairin' o' the siller.' Do ye think, 
noo, it's sae vera wonderful to 'Put twa pennies in a 
purse, an' see them creep thegither'? Glesgie may ken 
a' sic-like gear, I 'm nae sayin' ; but there 's no sae muckle 
worth in that, as ye '11 be findin' oot, though ye read in 
the books til the morn's mornin'. It's a fair disgrace to 
hae sic thochts. Mon can sae nae mair." 

"At any rate, there's a fine university there." 

"It's easy sayin' sae. Muckle service is it! Gude 
kens a' they learn there! Gin it's cooleges ye '11 be ad- 
mirin', maybe ye '11 no be so vera well acquaint wi' our 
ain toun? There's nane in a' Glesgie like the ane ye see 
the day. Mon, it's fair dementit ye '11 be." 

It took time and diplomacy and many a round com- 
pliment on Edinburgh to bring him out of his sulk; 
but eventually he yielded. 

" Aye," said he, " I believe ye '11 be in the richt the noo. 
It's gran' up here, dinna misdoot it. Mony's the braw 
sicht to be had, that 's a fac', an' I ken them a' like the 
back o' my hand. Sin lang afore yon trees were plantit, 
mare than ane fine dander hae I taen mysel', bonny sim- 
mer days, lang miles o'er the heather. Ye '11 believe me, 
I'd gang hame and sleep soun'. It's na sae pleesant, 
maybe, in winter, wi' the dour haars an' the fog an' the 



EDINBURGH 31 

east winds. But I aye like it fine in simmer, wi' a bit 
nip o' wind betimes an' then fair again. At the gloam- 
ing it 's quaiet an' cauller, and then aiblins I bide a blink 
an' hae a bit puff o' my cutty, an' syne I '11 gang to my 
bed wi' an easy hairt. But, wheesht, mon! It'll be twa 
o' the day by the noo, I 'm thinkin' ? Is it so ! Be gude to 
us! Weel, weel, I'll gang my gait. I maunna be late 
to the wark; it's a fearsome example to the laddies. 
*A scabbed sheep,' says auld Allan, 'smites the hale 
hirsel'.' Guid day to ye; an' keep awa' frae Glesgie." 
And with many a sigh and rheumatic hitch he shuffled 
off to the steps. 

The old man was right. " Frae ane an' twa o' the day " 
a blither or more inspiring spot than Calton Hill 
would be hard to find. What more could possibly be 
desired, with a city so fair and famous at one's feet and 
the air tonic with the sweetness of the heather and the 
brine of the sea ! Fancy plays an amiable role and adds 
to one's contentment with shadowy illusions of the 
Canongate of bygone days acclaiming Scotland's kings 
and queens as they ride forth in pomp and pageantry, 
with trains of fierce clansmen from the furtherest High- 
lands, with pibrochs screaming, bonnets dancing, and 
axes and claymores rattling. And Montrose may pass 
with his Graham Cavaliers, or Argyle leading the Camp- 
bells of the Covenant. With our eyes on Holyrood, 
pathetic visions float before us of fair Mary of many 
sorrows, over whose gilded gloom the poets have loved 



32 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

to linger. One moment she looms in the heroic martyr- 
dom conceived by Schiller, and the next we see her as 
Swinburne did in "Chastelard," with 

"lips 
Curled over, red and sweet; and the soft space 
Of carven brows, and splendor of great throat 
Swayed lily- wise." 

Welcome apparitions of later days throng about us on the 
hill: Ramsay and his "Gentle Shepherd," young Fer-, 
gusson and his wild companions, Burns with his jovial 
cronies, the scholarly Jeffrey, the learned Hume, the 
inspired Sir Walter, the delightful revelers of the " Noctes 
Ambrosianse," the gentle Lady Nairne, the eager, bril- 
liant Stevenson, and Dr. Brown with the faithful "Rab " 
and Ollivantwith "Bob, Son of Battle." The crisp sun- 
shine lies golden on Princes Street and all her flowered 
terraces; it glints the grim redoubts of the Castle and 
lingers on the crooked gables of High Street. From the 
brown heather of the Pentlands to the distant sparkle 
of the Firth stretches a vigorous and comely land. What 
man so callous as to feel no joy in "Scotia's Darling 
Seat"! 



ANTWERP 

2 P.M. TO 3 P.M. 




ANTWERP 

2 P.M. TO 3 P.M. 

A table in the lively little Cafe de la Terrasse, up on 
the broad stone promenoir overhanging the Antwerp 
docks, is one place in a thousand for the man who is 
inclined toward any such unusual combination as a 
maximum of twentieth-century business activity in a 
setting of the Middle Ages. He is fortunate in locality 
and happy in surroundings. A Parisian waiter removes 
the remains of his light luncheon of a salad of Belgian 
greens fresh this morning from a trim truck garden be- 
yond the ramparts, refills the thin tumbler to the taste 
of the guest with foaming local Orge or light Brussels 
Faro or the bitter product of Ghent or the flat, insipid 
stuff they boast about at Louvain, and supplies a light 
for an excellent cigar made here in Antwerp of the best 
growth of Havana. Supposing it to be two o'clock of the 
usual mottled, doubtful afternoon, — for Antwerp's 
weather, like Antwerp's history, is mingled sunshine and 
shadows, — the loiterer may look out at his ease on a 
notable and fascinating panorama. Beneath him and to 
either side extend miles of massive docks of ponderous 
masonry, upon and about which swarms an ant -like 
multitude of nimble and active longshoremen plying 



36 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

a network of ropes and tackle, and directing the labors 
of vast, writhing derricks that toil like a mechanical 
Israel in bondage. Snuggling close to the grim granite 
walls are merchant mammoths from the ends of the 
earth, and into these, with the ease of a man stooping 
for a pin, gigantic steel arms sweep tons of casks and 
bales that they have lightly plucked out of long wharf 
trains lying alongside. There is a prodigious bustling 
of porters in long blue blouses, shouts and cries from 
the riverful of shipping, trampling of thousands of hob- 
nailed shoes, and an incessant clatter of the wooden 
sabots of little Antwerp boys in peaked caps and baggy 
blue trousers and of little Antwerp girls in bright skirts 
and curious white headdress. 

This sort of thing is proceeding for miles up and down 
the river front, and all through the intricate series of 
locks and bassins and canals that quadruple the wharf- 
age of this rejuvenated old Flemish city. They are re- 
ceiving whole argosies of raw material in the shape of 
hides, tobacco, and textiles, and are sending away for- 
tunes in cut diamonds, delicate laces, linens, beer, 
sugar, and innumerable clever products of human 
hands from fragile glass to ponderous machinery. And 
they do it with more ease and, it seems necessary to 
add, with less profanity than any other port of Europe. 
What, then, could have possessed the genial Eugene 
Field to pass along that ancient slander on the excellent 
burghers of Flanders? 



ANTWERP 37 

'At any rate, as I grieve to state, 

Since these soldiers vented their danders, 

Conjectures obtain that for language profane, 
There is no such place as Flanders. 



This is the kind of talk you '11 find 
If ever you go to Flanders." 

While I should not wish to take such extreme ground as 
that assumed, in another connection, by a New York 
police inspector, when he observed that "every one 
of them facts has been verified to be absolutely untrue," 
still I must say that, as far as I could notice, there is 
nothing notable about the Flemish oath as employed to- 
day. Indeed, it is more than likely that one could pass 
a long and pleasant evening loitering among the tav- 
ernes and recreation haunts of the Belgian soldier and 
civilian and come across nothing more vocally spirited 
than robust guffaws, possibly punctuated discreetly, or 
heavy fists thundering the time as a couple of comrades 
scrape over the sanded floor in the contagious rhythm 
of that venerable and favorite waltz of the Nether- 
lands, — 

"Rosa, willen wy dansen? 

Danst Rosa; danst Rosa. 

Rosa, willen wy dansen? 

Danst Rosa zoet!" 

On the other hand, if, with this much of an excuse, a 
stranger should go exploring Antwerp between two and 



38 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

three o'clock in quest of " verkoop men dranken" signs, 
he would be quite otherwise repaid in the discovery of 
charming huddled and crooked streets and a wealth 
of architectural quaintness and beauty. He would have 
no difficulty in finding tavernes and drinking-places, 
particularly along the river front, where they abound. 
As he passed them he would encounter robust whiffs of 
acrid and penetrating odors with tar and fish in the 
ascendancy, and catch glimpses of a wooden-shod 
peasantry fraternizing with evil-eyed " water-rats" and 
devouring vast quantities of salmon and sauerkraut 
washed down with ale and white beer. There is no 
charge now, as once there was, for noise made by patrons. 
The silk-fingered gentry overreached themselves here, 
for when, a number of years ago, they had carried the 
robbing of foreign sailors to the point of international 
notoriety, the authorities took a hand and devised a sys- 
tem of payment for Jack ashore; then the American and 
English ministers and consuls established and made 
popular the Sailors' Bethel on the quay, with its clean 
and attractive reading- and amusement-rooms, and the 
Sailors' Home on Canal de l'Ancre, where, for fifty -five 
cents a day, Jack can have a neat little room to himself 
and four excellent meals in the bargain. For these rea- 
sons among others, a visitor, even by night, finds much 
less of noise and revelry than he had anticipated, and 
beholds the thirsty Antwerpian content himself with a 
final " nip " at an estaminet or even make shift of a "night- 



ANTWERP 39 

cap" of mineral water or black coffee at one or another 
of the city's innumerable cafes. In these he will himself 
be welcome to read the news of the day in the columns 
of "Le Precurseur" or "De Nieuwe Gazet," or, better 
still, in the venerable "Gazet van Gent," one of the 
oldest of existing newspapers, with nearly two hundred 
and fifty years of publication behind it. The real drink- 
ing will have been in progress where the out-of-town 
people have been dining a prix fixe, and clinking their 
burgundy and claret glasses at the great hotels on the 
Quai Van Dyck, the Place de Meir, or the Place Verte. 
The palm should really go to the amusement seekers 
of the latter little square; for nothing this side the ca- 
pacity of an archery club at a July kermess can com- 
pare with the thirst of the music lovers who throng the 
tables on the sidewalks before the restaurants and 
cafes of jolly Place Verte when the band is playing, on 
balmy summer evenings. Instead of dissipation, the 
man who explores Antwerp makes constant discovery of 
unanticipated delights. He observes about him in the 
surprising little streets of the old section an amazing 
collection of absurd roofs slanting steeply up for several 
stories, pierced with owl-like, staring, round windows; 
house fronts by the hundreds with denticulated gables 
stepping upward like staircases toward the sky; and 
pots of flowers and immaculate muslin curtains in tiny 
doll-house windows peering out from the most unex- 
pected and impossible places away up among the eaves 



40 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

and chimneys. He will catch an occasional glimpse of 
massive old four-poster beds with green curtains and 
yellow lace valances; of shining oak chests, and high- 
back chairs, and brown dining-rooms wainscoted in 
polished oak and most inviting with ponderous side- 
boards set with Delft platters and gleaming copper and 
pewter pieces. From time to time he will see large, cool 
living-rooms in which the father enjoys his paper and 
meerschaum pipe, while the placid-faced mother em- 
ploys herself with lace or embroidery and the fair- 
haired daughter at the piano tells how 

"Ik zag Cecilia komen 
Langs eenen waterkant, 
Ik zag Cecilia komen 
Mit bloemen in haer hand." 

As I previously observed, there is no better place for 
a preliminary impression of Antwerp than along the 
docks. There one acquires some adequate idea of the 
amazing extent of its industrial operations and enjoys, 
at the same time, an extraordinary panorama of a river 
choked with shipping in the immediate foreground, 
and, on the opposite bank, the sombre redoubts of Tete 
de Flandre and Fort Isabelle keeping watch and ward 
over the flat little farms that extend seaward in fields 
of pale-green corn and barley. For any one who has done 
the proper amount of preparatory reading on Antwerp, 
it will inspire stirring thoughts of the musical, artistic, 
and martial career of this rare old Flemish town. 



ANTWERP 41 

If the visitor be a lover of music — of Wagner's 
music — the surrounding uproar and confusion will 
shortly fade into a charming reverie as he gazes far 
down the glittering zigzag of the Scheldt and some dis- 
tant glimmer will take the form of the swan -boat of 
Lohengrin with the Grail knight leaning on his shining 
shield. The docks and quays will have disappeared, and 
in their place will once more lie the old low meadows, 
and, under the Oak of Justice, King Henry the Fowler 
will take seat on his throne with the nobles of Brabant 
ranged about him. Fair Elsa, charged with fratricide, 
moves slowly forward, sustained by her dream of a 
champion who is to come to her defense; and the her- 
alds pace off the lists and appeal to the four quarters in 
the sonorous chant, — 

"Wer hier im Gotteskampf zu streiten kam 
Fur Elsa von Brabant, der trete, vor." 

And suddenly the peasants by the water's edge cry out 
in amazement and point down the reaches of the river, 
and there comes glittering Lohengrin in the "shining 
armor" of Elsa's dream. The champion steps ashore 
and gives no heed to the awe-hushed company until 
he has sung to his feathered steed what now every 
child in Germany could sing with him, "Nun sei be- 
dankt, mein lieber Schwan." And then the contest 
rages and the false Frederick falls, and the royal cortege 
retires to the neighboring old fortress of the Steen. All 



42 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

night the treacherous Ortrud and her defeated Fred- 
erick plot by the steps of yonder cathedral, and there, 
in the morning, Lohengrin weds Elsa and the immortal 
Wedding March welcomes the "faithful and true" 
back to their fortress home. The black night of mis- 
trust and carnage follows, and when day dawns Lohen- 
grin bids farewell to his suspicious bride in these green 
Scheldt meadows and sails sadly away in his resplend- 
ent boat drawn by the dove of the Grail. 

On the other hand, if the visitor has a mind for his- 
tory, he may scorn the pretty Grail story and look with 
stern eyes on this Scheldt and the battle-scarred city 
beside it, mindful of the deeds of blood and fire that fill 
the hypnotic pages of Schiller, Prescott, and Motley, 
The monk of St. Gall could have appropriately dedi- 
cated to the war-ravaged Antwerp of those days his 
solemn antiphonal "media vita in morte sumus." The 
grim, turreted Steen, just at hand, recalls the bloody 
reign of Alva and how he condemned a whole people 
to death in an order of three lines. In its present r6Ie of 
museum it houses hundreds of implements of torture 
that once were drenched in the blood of the heroic 
burghers of Antwerp. Not all the horrors of the " Spanish 
Fury," when eight thousand citizens of this town were 
butchered in three days, nor the stirring memory of the 
"French Fury," with Antwerp triumphant, can dim the 
glory of the heroic resistance the " Sea Beggars " made to 
the advance of the Duke of Parma up the Scheldt. 




ANTWERP, FROM THE SCHELDT 



ANTWERP 43 

From the cathedral tower one may see the little towns of 
Calico and Oordam, on either bank of the river; it was 
between them that Parma built his bridge to obstruct 
navigation, and against it the men of Antwerp sent 
their famous fire-ships to open up a passage for the 
Zeelander allies. Gianibelli, who devised them, and 
whom Schiller styled "the Archimedes of Antwerp," 
builded better than he knew, for with one ship he de- 
stroyed a thousand Spaniards and heaped up their de- 
fenses into a labyrinth of ruin. Could Antwerp have 
risen then above the clash of factions, there would have 
been no need later to tear down the dikes and present 
the strange spectacle of ships sailing over the land, 
and their story might have been as triumphant as Hol- 
land's, and a united Netherlands have issued from those 
long wars with Spain. 

Here where the visitor takes his afternoon ease many 
a brave pageant foregathered in the troubled, olden 
days. In the magic pages of old Van Meteren's chronicles 
we see them pass again: Cold, gloomy, treacherous 
Philip stepping from his golden barge to walk under 
triumphal arches on a carpet of strewn roses, surrounded 
by magistrates and burghers splendid in ruffs and 
cramoisy velvet; later on, the Regent, Margaret of 
Parma, strident and gouty, whom Prescott has called "a 
man in petticoats"; and then the bloodthirsty Alva; 
then the dashing "Sword of Lepanto," the brilliant and 
romantic Don John of Austria; next, the atrocious 



44 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Requesens; and, last of all, the revengeful Alexander of 
Parma. Hopeful, stolid, impassive Antwerp, ever the 
sheep for the shearers, ever believing that at last the 
worst was over, rejoices in her welcome to each as though 
the millennium had finally dawned on all her troubles 
and sets cressets to blazing in the cathedral tower and 
roasts whole oxen in the public squares. 

The scream of a river siren will arouse the visitor 
from the Past to the Present, and, with a sigh, he will 
saunter forth to see the places that cannot come to 
him. He will leave with regret this busy, fascinating 
river — "the lazy Scheldt" that Goldsmith loved. Ex- 
cited little tugs are bustling busily about, queer-coated 
dock-hands struggle mightily with their mammoth 
burdens, and ships of every shape and pattern throng 
the roadstead before him. The sharp and trim Yankee 
sloop, the ponderous German tramp, the fastidious 
British freighter, the clean-cut ocean liner, and, best of 
all, the round-sterned, wallowing Dutch craft, green of 
hull and yellow of sail, — all are here, and, he can think, 
for his especial diversion. A canal barge crawls labori- 
ously by, and in that floating home which she seldom 
cares to leave, a much-be-petticoated mother of Fland- 
ers busies herself with her many children and looks 
after the care of her tiny house; — and looks after it 
well, as you may see by the spotless little curtains that 
flutter in the windows and the bright pots of geraniums 
that stand on the sills. One recalls the keen delight this 



ANTWERP 45 

singular craft afforded Robert Louis Stevenson at the 
time he made his charming "Inland Voyage" from 
Antwerp. Quoth he: "Of all the creatures of com- 
mercial enterprise, a canal barge is by far the most de- 
lightful to consider. It may spread its sails, and then 
you see it sailing high above the tree-tops and the wind- 
mill, sailing on the aqueduct, sailing through the green 
corn-lands; the most picturesque of things amphibious. 
... There should be many contented spirits on board, 
for such a life is both to travel and to stay at home." 

Along the front there is also opportunity to expend 
a couple of francs to advantage for a ticket on the com- 
fortable little steamer that is just impatiently casting 
off from the embarcadere, and to go sailing with her on 
an hour's voyage up the river to Tamise to view the 
shipping at greater length, to see the merchants' villas 
at Hoboken, and finally the famous picture of the Holy 
Family at the journey's end. Otherwise the visitor may 
take a parting look up the Quay van Dyck and the 
Quay Jordaens, examine once more the striking Porte 
de l'Escaut that Rubens decorated, and so turn a re- 
luctant back on the bright life of the river to thread a 
crooked street or two, cobbled and tortuous, and issue 
forth on the Grand Place before the immense, fantastic 
H6tel de Ville. 

In the drowsy early afternoon this quaint and curious 
old city hall wears a most friendly and reposeful air. 
To one who has never before seen any of these extraord- 



46 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

inary Old-World buildings such a one as this will move 
such incredulity as mastered the countryman at the first 
sight of a giraffe; — " Shucks!" said he when he had 
looked it all over, "there never was such an animal!" 
Fancy a rambling, picture-book of a structure a hundred 
yards long, made up of the oddest combination of archi- 
tectural orders — massive pillars for the first story, 
Doric arcades for the second, Ionic for the third, and 
last of all, an abbreviated colonnade supporting a 
steep, tent-like, gable-pierced roof! As though some 
touch of the whimsical might even so have been neg- 
lected, behold a pompous central tower, decorated to 
suffocation, arched of window and graven of column, 
rearing itself in three diminishing, denticulated stories 
above the long, sloping roof, until the singular, box-like 
ornaments on the very tiptop appear tiny Greek tombs 
of a cloud-hung Acropolis. The statues of Wisdom and 
Justice could pass for iEschylus and Sophocles, and the 
Holy Virgin on the summit might very well be Athena. 
The friendly air to which I have referred extends even 
to these statues, who have the appearance of shouting 
down to you to come in out of the heat and have a 
look at the great stairway of colored marbles and rest 
awhile before the splendid chimney-piece of delicately 
carved black-and-white stone in the elaborate Salle 
des Manages. Subtle matchmakers, those statues! 
And, indeed, if Antwerp is the first steamer-stop of the 
visitor, he may well be pardoned for reveling in this 



ANTWERP 47 

Hotel de Ville as something that for picturesque beauty 
he may not hope to better elsewhere. And yet that 
would only be because he had not seen the glorious one 
at Brussels, or the grim and huddled caprice at Mechlin, 
or the incredible Halle aux Draps at Ypres, or the 
amazing Rabot Gate or Watermen's Guild House of 
Ghent. And even these will fall back into the common- 
place once he has drifted along the Quai du Rosaire 
of drowsy old Bruges and been steeped in picturesque- 
ness and color that is beyond any man's describing. 

No one who cares for structural quaintness and origin- 
ality can fail to find especial delight in the surround- 
ings of this venerable Grand Place. Along one entire 
side, like prize competitors in an architectural fancy 
ball, shoulder to shoulder, stiff and precise, range the old 
Halls of the Guilds. The Archers, the Coopers, the 
Tailors, the Carpenters, and all the others of that most 
unusual alignment, present themselves in full regalia 
of characteristic ornament and design. As though in 
keeping with their ancient traditions of stout rivalry, 
there is a very real air of vying between themselves for 
some coveted palm for fantastic bizarreness; and all the 
while with a solemn innocence of being at all grotesque 
or unusual. One could laugh at their naive unconscious- 
ness of the prodigious show they make, with sculptures 
and adornments of bygone days and a combined vio- 
lent sky-line slashed with long eaves and bitten out 
in serrated gable ends. But there is little of merriment 



48 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

and very much of reverence in the thoughts they excite 
of worthy pride in skill of craftsmanship and the glory 
their masters brought to this city in the sixteenth cent- 
ury in winning from Venice the industrial supremacy 
of the world. In those days there were no poor in all 
Antwerp and every child could read and write at least 
two languages, and the Counts of Flanders were more 
powerful than half the kings of Europe. 

But the Grand Place has more to show than the guild, 
halls. The apogee of the whimsical and fantastic has 
been attained in the choppy sea of red-tiled roof-tops 
that eddies above this huddled neighborhood. Grim old 
dormered veterans, queer and chimerical, palsied and 
askew, have here held their own stoutly through the 
centuries. They have echoed back the shouts of the 
crusaders, the triumphal cannon of Spanish royalty, 
and the free-hearted welcomes to foreign princes come 
to curry favor with the Flemish merchant rulers of the 
world. They have turned gray with the groans of their 
nobles writhing under the Inquisition and rosy with 
approval of the adroit and courageous William of Nas- 
sau. From their antique windows have leaned the burgo- 
masters of Rubens and the cavaliers of Velasquez, brave 
in ruffs and beards; and out of the most hidden nests 
of their eaves the wan and pallid faces of their hunted 
sons have been raised to watch the approach of the 
ruthless soldiery of Requesens and Parma. These old 
roofs look down to-day on a rich and happy people 



ANTWERP 49 

whose skill and tireless industry have reared a commer- 
cial fabric that astonishes the world. 

At this afternoon hour the Grand Place betrays little 
of its early-morning activity, when it is thronged with 
the overflowing stands of busy marketmen in baggy 
trousers, and banks of rich colors of the flower-women 
in immaculate linen headdress proffering the choice out- 
put of their scrupulously tilled farms. Scarcely less 
picturesque are these oddly garbed country-folk than 
the famous fish-venders over at Ostend, and certainly 
they are a more fragrant people to shop among. A 
curious and colorful picture they present with the long 
lines of gayly painted dog-carts blazing with peonies 
and geraniums. Huddled around the great statue of 
Brabo they quite throw into limbo the Daughters of the 
Scheldt that are disporting in bronze on the pedestal. 
Brabo himself, Antwerp's Jack-the-Giant-Killer, pauses 
on high in the act of hurling away the severed hand of 
the vanquished Antigonus as though he could see no 
unoccupied spot to throw it in. Should he let go at 
random, and hit house Number 4, he could surely ex- 
pect to be hauled down forthwith, for the great Van 
Dyck was born there, and Antwerp is nothing if not 
reverent of the memory of her glorious sons of Art. And 
Brabo cannot afford to take too many chances with the 
security of his own position, for he himself has a rival; 
Napoleon the Great was really a greater champion of 
Flanders than he, and overthrew a worse enemy of 



50 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Antwerp's than the fabled Antigonus when he raised 
the embargo on the Scheldt, that had existed for a cent- 
ury and a half under the terms of the outrageous 
Treaty of Westphalia, until scarcely a rowboat would 
venture over the silt-choked mouth of the river, and 
only then to find the famous capital a forsaken village of 
empty streets and abandoned factories. The dredging of 
the channel, the expenditure of millions in construction 
of wharves and quays, and the restoration of the city 
to its high place in the commercial world was a greater 
and more difficult work than Brabo's. 

The varied and vivid life of Antwerp unfolds itself 
strikingly in the early afternoon to one who exchanges 
the sleepy, mediaeval Grand Place for the broad, curving, 
crowded boulevard of the popular Place de Meir. It was 
just such clean and handsome streets as this that in- 
spired John Evelyn to write so delightedly of Antwerp 
two hundred and fifty years ago, describing them in his 
famous "Diary" as "fair and noble, clean, well-paved, 
and sweet to admiration." Indeed, everything seemed 
to have charmed Evelyn here, as witness his inclusive 
approval, " Nor did I ever observe a more quiet, clean, 
elegantly built, and civil place than this magnificent 
and famous city of Antwerp." Rubens, the name of 
names in Flanders, was then too recently dead to have 
come into the fullness of his fame; whereas to-day one 
thinks of him continually here and likes nothing better 
than the many opportunities to study him in the com- 



ANTWERP 51 

pleteness of his wonderful career — "the greatest mas- 
ter," said Sir Joshua Reynolds, "in the mechanical part 
of the art, that ever exercised a pencil." Even trivial 
associations of his activity are cherished; as we find 
them, for instance, in the little woodcut designs he made 
for his famous friend, Christopher Plantin, the greatest 
printer of the era, and which one handles reverently in 
the old Plantin house in the Marche du Vendredi — 
that picture-book of a house, where corbel-carved ceiling- 
beams overhang antique presses, types, and mallets, 
and great windows of tiny leaded panes let in a flood 
of light from the rarest and mellowest old courtyard 
in the whole of the Netherlands. 

The Place de Meir is Antwerp's Broadway; and an 
afternoon stroll along it affords a constantly changing 
view of stately public and private buildings, no less at- 
tractive to the average man than those "apple-green 
wineshops, garlanded in vines" that delighted Theo- 
phile Gautier on the river front. Little corner shrines, 
so numerous in this city, shelter saints of tinsel and 
gilt and receive the reverence of a population that has 
four hundred Catholics to every Protestant. One must 
necessarily delight in a street whose houses are all of 
delicately colored brick, with stone trimmings carved 
to a nicety and shutters painted in softest greens. 
The imposing Royal Palace is graceful and beautiful, 
but human interest goes out to the stone-garlanded 
house across the way, — old Number 54, — where 



52 AROUND THE CLOCK IN' EUROPE 

Rubens was born and where he lived so many years 
and took so much pleasure in making beautiful for his 
parents. On either hand one sees solid residences of the 
most generous proportions, and all in tints of pink and 
gray, and busy hotels with red-faced porters hurrying 
about in long blouses. Picture stores and bookshops 
scrupulously stocked with religious volumes beguile ling- 
ering inspection. There are establishments on every 
hand for the sale of ecclesiastical paraphernalia, with 
windows hung with confirmation wreaths, crucifixes, 
rosaries, and what-not. Occasionally, even here, one 
discovers, crushed in between more consequential busi- 
nesses, the celebrated little gingerbread-shops of which 
so much amused notice has been taken. Restaurants 
and cafes abound. One sees them on every hand, with 
their characteristic overflow of tables and chairs on the 
sidewalk, always thronged, both inside and out, with 
jolly, chattering patrons and gleaming in sideboard and 
shelf with highly polished vessels of brass and pewter. 
Here and there one passes the confectionery shops, called 
patisseries;, where ices, mild liqueurs, and mineral waters 
refresh a thriving trade. Stevenson found no relish for 
Flemish food, pronouncing it "of a nondescript, occa- 
sional character." He complained that the Belgians do 
not go at eating with proper thoroughness, but "peck 
and trifle with viands all day long in an amateur spirit." 
"All day long" is apt enough, for Antwerp's restaurants 
and cafes are always thronged. 



ANTWERP 53 

These ruddy-faced and placid Belgians are a very 
serene and contented people. It is pleasant and even 
restful to watch them; they go about the affairs of life 
with such an absence of fret and fever. Spanish- 
appearing ladies float gracefully past in silk man- 
tillas; priests by the hundreds shuffle along leisurely in 
picturesque hats and gowns; the portly merchant, on his 
way at this hour to the Moresque, many-columned 
Bourse, proceeds in like deliberate and unhurried 
fashion. Street venders, in peaked caps and volumin- 
ous trousers, approach you with calm deliberation and 
retire unruffled at your dismissal. On every sunny 
corner military men by the score" loaf e and invite their 
souls." Tradesmen in the shops and cabmen in the 
open go about their business as though it were a matter 
of infinite leisure. Even the day laborers in the streets, 
whose huge sabots stand in long rows by the curb, sur- 
vey life tranquilly; why worry when a good pair of 
wooden shoes costs less than a dollar and will last for 
five or six years? 

The snatches of conversation one catches betray 
the confusion of tongues inseparable from a nation of 
whom one half cannot understand the other, and whose 
cousins, once or twice removed, are of foreign speech 
to either. The Dutch'spoken in the Scheldt country is 
said to be as bewildering to a German, as is the French 
the Walloons employ in the valley of the Meuse to a 
Parisian. But although the Flemish outnumber their 



54 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

fellow countrymen of Wallonia two to one, still French 
is the tongue of the court, the sciences, and all the edu- 
cated and upper circles. It is like Austria-Hungary all 
over again. And French continues steadily to gain 
ground in spite of the utmost efforts of the enthusiasts 
behind the new "Flemish Movement." One sees both 
classes on the Place de Meir, — the stolid, light-haired 
man of Flanders and the nervous, swarthy Walloon. 
The beauty of the blue-eyed, belle Flamande is in happy 
contrast with that of the slender, dark-eyed Wallonne, 
and their poets have exhausted themselves in efforts to 
do justice to either side of so delicate and distracting a 
dilemma. Our grandmothers heard much of the charms 
of La Flamande when Lortzing's melodious "Czaar und 
Zimmermann " was so popular, seventy -five yearsago : — 

"Adieu, ma jolie Flamande, 
Que je quitte malgre moi! 
J'en aurai la de demand, 
J'ai de l'amitie pour toi." 

The complexion of the life on the Place de Meir 
changes with the hours. Between two and three o'clock 
we find it disposed to adapt itself as closely as possible 
along lines of personal comfort. By five it will be lively 
with carriages and automobiles bound for the driving 
in the prim little Pepiniere, or the bird-thronged Zoolog- 
ical gardens, or around the lake in the central park, with 
a turn up the fashionable Rue Carnot to the stately 
boulevards of the new and exclusive Borgerhout sec- 



ANTWERP 55 

tion. At that hour one may count confidently upon 
seeing every uniform of the garrison among the crowds of 
officers who turn out to have a part in the beauty show. 
On the other hand, if it were early morning — very early 
morning — and the sun were still fighting its way through 
the mists and vapors of the Scheldt, the Place de Meir 
would resound with rattling little carts by the hundreds, 
bearing great milk cans of glittering, polished brass 
packed in straw, by whose sides patient, placid-faced 
women would trudge along in quaint thimble-bonnets, 
with plaid shawls crossed and belted above voluminous 
skirts and their feet set securely in the clumsy wooden 
sabots of the Fatherland. Market gardeners in linen 
smocks and gray worsted stockings would be bringing 
Antwerp its breakfast in carts only a little larger than 
the milk-women's, and butcher boys would be scurrying 
by with meat trays on their heads or suspended from 
yokes across their shoulders. And all the echoes of the 
city would be forced into feverish activity to answer the 
wild clamor of the barking and fighting dogs, shaggy and 
strong, that draw all these picturesque little wagons. 
Assuredly there are few sights in Antwerp so impres- 
sive to the stranger as this substitution of dog for 
horse. It has been celebrated in prose and verse, with 
Ouida possibly carrying off the palm with her canine 
vie intime, "A Dog of Flanders." 

As the loiterer continues his afternoon stroll to the 
large and central Place de Commune, crosses into the 



56 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

chain of transverse boulevards, and returns riverward 
to that choicest spot of all, the tree-shaded, memory- 
haunted Place Verte, he is bound to reflect upon the 
vast changes that Antwerp, above all other Continental 
cities, has experienced in the last quarter-century. He 
will marvel, too, that Robert Bell should have lamented 
in his charming "Wayside Pictures" the paucity of gay 
life here and particularly the lack of theatrical enter- 
tainment. It may have been so when Bell wrote, fifty 
years ago, but it is decidedly otherwise to-day. So far 
as theatres go, they simply abound; nor could city 
streets be gayer than these, thronged with a merry, 
happy people and bright with the uniforms of artillery- 
men and fortress engineers, grenadiers of the line and 
the dashing chasseurs-a-cheval. Every hotel and cafe 
has its orchestra; and in the early evening practically 
every square of the city has its concert by a band from 
a regiment or guild. There is no suburb, they say, but 
has its own band or orchestra, or both. Indeed, An- 
twerp is nearly as music-mad as art-mad. 

The shady aisles of poplars in the cozy Place Verte, 
the perfumes and peaceful sounds, the music of the 
cathedral bells, the homelike hotels and cafes and the 
drowsy, nodding Old-World house-fronts combine to 
produce a sense of comfort and satisfaction peculiar to 
this favored little square. There is, besides, a special 
and impressive feeling of something like the personal 
presence of the great Rubens; partly, perhaps, from 



r ANTWERP 57 

the fact that the city's chief statue of him, a lifelike 
bronze of heroic size, stands at the centre of the Place. 
Twice the normal stature of man it is, and its pedestal 
is five times as high as one's head, and the great palette, 
book, and scrolls are all of more generous proportions 
than such things actually ever are; — but there seems 
nothing at all disproportionate in that, considering what 
he was and what the average man is. The memory 
of one who could paint a masterpiece in a day, who stood 
head and shoulders above every living artist of his time, 
and whose work has inspired and delighted mankind 
for three hundred years, becomes, like all great objects, 
positively prodigious from actual proximity. Such is 
the inevitable attitude towards Rubens when one 
touches the things he touched, walks the streets of the 
city where he was born, lived, and lies buried, where 
he wrought his greatest artistic triumphs, and where his 
finest work is still preserved and reverenced. The most 
admired cathedral in the whole of the Netherlands rises 
out of the fluttering tree-tops of the square, and the 
greatest treasures it contains are the product of this 
man's genius. Every one feels the Rubens influence in 
the Place Verte; Eugene Fromentin, fresh from his 
pictorial triumphs of Algerian life, observed in "Les 
Maitres d'Autref ois " : "Our imagination becomes ex- 
cited more than usual when, in the centre of Place Verte, 
we see the statue of Rubens and further on, the old ba- 
silica where are preserved the triptychs which, humanly 



58 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

speaking, have consecrated it." Such are the privileged 
emotions of the wise and fortunate visitors who pitch 
their passing tent in this fair and favored nook. 

Reflections over Rubens naturally arouse thoughts 
of the many sons of Flanders who won preeminence in 
the domain of art. No other city, inexplicable as it is, 
has, in modern times, seen so large a proportion of its 
citizens achieve the loftiest heights of fame in this glori- 
ous activity; nor has any other honored art so unaffect- 
edly in memorializing their triumphs. In Antwerp there 
are scores of streets and squares, and even quays, named 
after its artists. There are also fine statues to Rubens, 
Van Dyck, David Teniers, Jordaens, Quinten Matsys, 
and Hendrik Leys, and other memorials to the brothers 
Van Eyck, to Memling, Wappers, Frans Hals, Van der 
Heyden, De Keyser, and Verboekhoven. In private 
and public collections the people have jealously kept 
possession of the masterpieces of their fellow country- 
men. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, on the Place du 
Musee, is as much a treasure-house of Flemish art as the 
Rijks Museum at Amsterdam is of Dutch art. Again 
Place Verte plumes itself, for just around the corner 
was born the great Teniers, wizard depicter of tavern 
life and kermesses, and on one side is that tourists' de- 
light, the graceful, feathery well-top that Quinten 
Matsys wrought out of a single piece of iron, before the 
days when love inspired him to win the most coveted 
laurels of the painter. 



ANTWERP 59 

However, art aside, Place Verte has distinctions of 
its own. Something of interest is always occurring here. 
Suburban bands hold weekly competitions in its art- 
istic pavilion and the most skillful musicians hold con- 
certs here each evening. The sidewalks then are crowded 
with chairs and tables, and at the close the people rise 
and join in the national hymn "La Brabangonne," with 
its out-of-date lament to the men of Brabant that "the 
orange may no longer wave upon the tree of Liberty." 
Of an afternoon a regiment may swing through in full 
regalia, the red, yellow, and black flag snapping in the 
van, and the band crashing out the ancient war-song 
"Bergen-op-Zoom." If to-day were July 21 there would 
be tremendous enthusiasm and cheering celebrating the 
Fetes Nationales in honor of the Revolution of 1830; as 
well there should, for Belgium is the smallest and one 
of the most desirable little kingdoms of all Europe, and 
the national motto, "L' Union fait la Force," has to be 
closely adhered to if the Lion of Brabant would stand up 
under the baiting of his powerful and covetous neigh- 
bors. 

The passing of a Sister of the Beguinage, in sombre 
black garb and an extraordinary creation of immaculate 
white linen on her head, recalls the many things one 
has read of this interesting and noble order which is 
peculiarly Belgium's own. Their neat little settlements 
are a source of endless admiration to strangers, and 
quite as fascinating is their beautiful vesper service 



60 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

which bears the pretty name of the " salut des Beguines." 
Readers of Laurence Sterne, who should be legion, 
promptly recall the curious story of "The Fair Be- 
guine" that Trim told Uncle Toby in "Tristram Shandy," 
and the valiant Captain's comment: "They visit and 
take care of the sick by profession — I had rather, for 
my own part, they did it out of good nature." 

It is one of the proud distinctions of Place Verte to be 
at the very portals of Antwerp's glorious cathedral, the 
largest, richest, and most beautiful in the Netherlands. 
From his cafe chair the visitor watches its great shadow 
steal over him as the afternoon wanes, while at any 
moment by merely raising his eyes he may revel in the 
graceful outlines of its sweep of ambulatory chapels and 
let the aspiring tips of delicate pinnacles and arches 
entice his vision to the loftiest point of its one finished 
and matchless tower. Never was Napoleon so pat in 
"fitting the scene with the apposite phrase" as when 
he compared this tower to Mechlin lace. It is delight- 
ful to look up above the trees of the Place at the enor- 
mous bulk of this tremendous structure, stained and 
darkened by the vapors of river and canals, study its 
rich carvings and stained-glass windows centuries old, 
and note how the blue sky, in patterns of delicate folia- 
tion and fragile arch, shines like mosaics through the 
clustered apertures of the filmy openwork of the lofty 
tower. A hundred bells drip mellow music from that 
exquisite belfry every few minutes all day long. You 



ANTWERP 61 

listen, perhaps, to detect the impression they gave 
Thackeray of a new version of the shadow-dance from 
"Dinorah," conscious that they are going to haunt you 
as they did him for days after you have left Antwerp 
far behind. It is peculiarly appropriate that the Lohen- 
grin Wedding March should be a favorite on the bells of 
the very cathedral where Lohengrin, according to the 
story, was married. Indeed, so many and so varied are 
the clear bell-voices of this great carillon that their 
music seems, as the neighboring bells of Bruges did to 
Longfellow, — 

"Like the psalms from some old cloister, 
When the nuns sing in the choir; 
And the great bell tolled among them, 
Like the chanting of a friar." 

Within this treasure-chest of a cathedral are jewels 
worthy of such a casket. One goes out of the glare of 
the afternoon sun into the coolness and scented gloom 
of its vaulted, many-aisled, and multi-chapeled vast- 
ness, and there in the hush of worshipers kneeling in 
prayer he finds splendid altars that gleam in a profusion 
of ornaments of silver, gold, and precious stones, glori- 
ous rose-windows, carven confessionals and choir stalls, 
life-like figures in wax clad in silks and crowned in gold, 
hundreds of masterful paintings, a high altar of extra- 
ordinary splendor blazing in costly decorations under a 
golden canopy supported by silver figures, and, at the 
centre of the seven aisles, Verbruggen's far-famed 



62 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

carved wooden pulpit, realistic in lifelike foliage and 
birds, and with plump little cherubim floating aloft 
with the apparently fluttering canopy. As if this were 
not enough to distinguish any one church, here hang 
three of the most glorious creations of the hand of man, 
the masterpieces of Rubens himself. The Assumption 
alone could have sufficed; what is it, then, to have the 
tremendous glory of the presence of those greater 
achievements, The Elevation of the Cross and The 
Descent from the Cross! One feels he could easily do 
as did the hero of Gautier's "Golden Fleece" and carry 
away forever after a hopeless passion for the beautiful, 
grief-stricken Magdalen. 

The power and appeal of sheer beauty has perhaps 
never been exampled as in the case of this cathedral. 
Through all the sackings and pillages of Antwerp the 
savagery and destructiveness of her foes have stopped 
here. The most ruthless soldiery could not bring them- 
selves to lay violent hands upon it. One exception stands 
out in this remarkable experience, and that one was 
quite sufficient. The fanatical "Iconoclasts," frenzied 
against the Church of Rome, fell to a depth of abase- 
ment below the worst villains of Spain. Those atrocious, 
misguided "Iconoclasts"! What a frightful page in 
Antwerp's history is the one that recounts the three 
days of horrors of these frantic and terrible zealots, three 
hundred and fifty years ago! Schiller, Motley, and 
Prescott have told the story as few stories have ever 



ANTWERP 63 

been told. In the calm of this afternoon it is impossible 
to conceive the uproar and confusion with which these 
lofty arches then resounded. Fancy a horde of men and 
boys, lighted by wax tapers in the hands of screaming 
women of the streets, demolishing the altars and rend- 
ing and destroying every exquisite decoration and even 
tearing open the graves and scattering the bones of the 
dead. Says Motley: "Every statue was hurled from its 
niche, every picture torn from the wall, every wonder- 
fully painted window shivered to atoms, every ancient 
monument shattered, every sculptured decoration, 
however inaccessible in appearance, hurled to the ground. 
Indefatigably, audaciously, — endowed, as it seemed, 
with preternatural strength and nimbleness, — these 
furious Iconoclasts clambered up the dizzy heights, 
shrieking and chattering like malignant apes, as they 
tore off in triumph the slowly matured fruit of centu- 
ries." 

Not the cathedral alone, but every Catholic temple 
of Antwerp, and four hundred others in Flanders, 
were sacked in this sudden revolt against the Papacy. 
It is said that King Philip, when he heard of it, fell 
into a paroxysm of frenzy and tore his beard for rage, 
swearing by the soul of his father that it should 
cost them dear. How dear it shortly did cost them, 
both the guilty and the innocent, we are shown in 
the picture Schiller has drawn of Calvinists' bodies 
dangling from the beams of their roofless churches, 



64 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

of "the places of execution filled with corpses, the 
prisons with condemned victims, the highroads with 
fugitives." Such was one of the extraordinary experi- 
ences through which this beautiful cathedral passed — 
one of the maddest, most senseless, and most frightfully 
punished outbreaks in all history. 

In the company of the doves that nest among the 
pinnacles and arches away up in the cathedral tower, 
one looks out at this hour on a very considerable por- 
tion of the little kingdom — forty miles, they tell you, 
with a good glass, in any direction. It is a prospect well 
worth the weary climb. Just below, the tiled and gabled 
roofs rise and fall all about like a troubled sea. The 
crooked streets of the old section and the straight ones 
of the new, and the places and parks in verdant spaces 
here and there have the appearance of some vast topo- 
graphical map. The gray Scheldt lies like a string of 
Ghent flax to Antwerp's bent bow. A wrinkled arc of 
massive and intricate fortifications wards the rich city 
from its foes, and just beyond lie numerous tiny villages 
all with the exact primness of mathematical problems. 
An unusual country view is spread out on every hand. 
Canals, numerous as fences and dotted with boats 
and slowly-moving barges, sear the green fields like 
pale-blue scars; and white, dusty roads criss-cross with 
their solemn flanking of tall poplar trees. As if this re- 
gion were the natural habitat of some strange and mon- 
strous form of animal life, one beholds everywhere a 



ANTWERP 65 

semblance of motion and activity in the gaunt, wav- 
ing, canvas arms of hundreds of plethoric windmills. 
Diminutive, trim farms, like little gardens, give the 
appearance of a general carpeting by Turkish rugs of 
vivid and diversified design; each has its whitewashed 
cottage roofed in thatch or tile and set in orchards 
hedged with box and hawthorn. Fields of corn, wheat, 
rye, and oats expand in well-kept richness, and in all 
this profusely cultivated region men, women, boys, and 
girls toil from the faintest dawn to sunset, and often 
all night by moonlight, content and even happy in the 
winning of enough to supply clothing and shelter and 
the unvarying fare of soup, coffee, and black rye bread. 
Seaward and northward lie sand dunes, dikes, and pol- 
ders stretching away to the old morasses where the 
valiant Morini faced and stopped even Caesar. Liter- 
ary people will see in all this country the land of "Quen- 
tin Durward," as that greatest story of Flanders comes 
to mind, and they will perhaps reflect upon the char- 
acteristics of the good burghers of those days, whom Sir 
Walter thought "fat and irritable," and will see young 
Durward defying the ferocious "Wild Boar of Ardennes " 
in the perilous service of the fair Lady Isabelle, herself 
a Flemish countess. 

To the northwest one sees the gleaming reaches of the 
Scheldt emptying themselves into the distant sea and, 
nearer at hand, solemn little Terneuzen where the ships 
turn into the canal for Ghent — Ghent, the "Man- 



66 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Chester of Belgium," whereold Roland swings in his bel- 
fry and calls 

"o'er lagoon and dike of sand, 
'I am Roland! I am Roland! There is victory in the land.' " 

On the east rise the spires of Westmalle, where in their 
Trappist convent austere disciples of St. Bruno, garbed 
in sackcloth and with shaven heads, pass their voice- 
less lives and keep watch beside the open graves in the 
orchard. To the south is venerable Mechlin on the 
many-bridged river Dyle, once famous for such laces as 
we may still see in the pictures of its immortal son, 
Frans Hals. Brussels lifts its towers forty miles due 
south, and stretches its broad roads to Waterloo. And it 
is there the black forest of Ardennes expands, where St. 
Hubert, patron of hunters, intercedes for the health of 
good dogs, and which certain Shakespearean editors 
have fixed upon as the Forest of Arden of "As You Like 
It." Over there lies Namur where the gallant Uncle 
Toby of "Tristram Shandy" received the painful 
wound deplored of the Widow Wadman, "before the 
Gate of St. Nicholas," as the precise description always 
ran, "in one of the traverses of the trench, opposite to 
the salient angle of the demibastion of St. Roch." 

One lingers long and delightedly over this charming 
panorama of fascinating and storied associations, until 
presently the great clock beneath us booms the hour of 
three, and our time is up. We turn regretfully from 
this toyland country and the gracious, old-fashioned 



ANTWERP 67 

town — this placid, music-loving, art-reverencing Ant- 
werp, with its many gables and its many rare delights. 
The friendly moon, a little later, will silver her huddled 
roofs and serrated fronts, her fagades whose fantastic 
ends will be steps for White Pierrot to go up to his chim- 
ney-tops, her quiet squares and quaint, twisting alleys, 
her solid burgher mansions and vineclad waterman 
cottages. Serene and chaste, the delicate spire of the 
magic cathedral will rear its traceried, guardian length 
from out the deep shadows of little Place Verte and 
look down all night, with the affection of half a thousand 
years, on this quaint and merry Antwerp snuggling up 
to the languid Scheldt. 



ROME 

3 P.M. TO 4 P.M. 




ROME 

3 P.M. TO 4 P.M. 

Like the lizards in the dusty Forum ruins, emerging 
from dusky retreats to warm and blink in the sun and 
then flash back into some sheltered refuge, so visitors 
at Rome issue from dim closing museums at three o'clock 
in the afternoon and gaze around in a stupid, dazed 
fashion on a sky of cloudless deep blue and on placid 
streets and squares that seem fairly to quiver in a golden 
haze of strong sunshine. After the cool interiors the 
sultry heat seems doubly oppressive, and there is some- 
thing of the nature of a mild struggle before reality suc- 
ceeds in summoning them back from that vague state of 
disassociation, that condition of all-mind-and-no-body, 
produced by an intense and protracted study of all those 
wonderful things that great museums contain. To this 
confused condition of mind there is generally added a 
further disquieting element in the shape of a blank 
misgiving as to how the intervening hour can be toler- 
ably passed before joining the four o'clock promenaders 
in the Pincian Gardens to see Roman Fashion at its 
ante-prandial rites. And yet were strangers merely to 
remain receptive and allow their extraordinary sur- 



72 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

roundings to assert themselves and supply the diversion 
with which they are dynamically charged, this is an hour 
that might well prove to be one of the most delightful 
of the whole twenty-four in Rome. 

For the masterful spell of the Eternal City is still 
world-conquering; it only asks the chance. Protract 
your stay as you will, there remains at last a sense of 
awe, almost of incredulity, at being, in the actual flesh, 
in precincts so ultra- venerated — in dread, historic 
Rome. It is only a somewhat milder form of the feeling 
that overpowered you the very first morning of your 
visit when, after the night's sleep of forgetfulness, you 
read with amazed, half -awake eyes the printed slip on 
the bedroom door that affirmed your hotel to be on no 
less august an eminence than one of the seven hills of 
Rome. Even when you had rushed to the window for 
corroboration and stared out in excited astonishment on 
a vast shoulder of dusty, reddish brown ruins with pert 
vines greening in its loftiest recesses, and a guidebook 
insisted that they were the Baths of Diocletian, a re- 
luctant fear remained that you might only be, after all, 
in the pleasant toils of the old, recurrent dream from 
which you might shortly and miserably awake. 

But if, at three o'clock of a summer afternoon, the 
particular museum whose doors are remorselessly 
closing upon your final, lingering look chances to be that 
fortunate one on the Capitoline Hill that houses, among 
its array of mellow antiques, the pointed-ear original of 



ROME 73 

Hawthorne's "Marble Faun," you could not do better 
than make use of the remainder of the admission ticket 
and have a survey of Rome from the airy summit of the 
campanile in the rear. To effect this, one picks his way 
among the imposing remains of the ancient record- 
house of the tabularium, mounts the long flight of iron 
steps in a corner of its colonnade, and soon reaches the 
top of the tower of the Capitol, with Rome as utterly 
at his feet as ever it appeared to the eyes of Alaric and 
his Goths. 

In tones of soft yellow, gray, and dull orange the roof- 
masses sweep northward, eastward, and westward, while 
to the southward and at your feet lies heaped the earthy, 
dusty chaos of ruins that crown the imperial Palatine, 
the popular Caelian, and the luckless Aventine Hills. 
Parks and villa gardens are blotches of dark foliage; and, 
within its white embankment walls, the sacred Tiber, 
in a twisting yellow band, rushes swiftly down the face 
of the city in its mad rush for Ostia and the sea. Be- 
yond the most distant suburbs extend the rolling plains 
of the Campagna like an all-embracing sea, until they 
seem to wash in a gentle surf about the Sabine foot- 
hills, away to the north, and brim southward to the 
verge of the Alban Hills beyond the farthest glimpse of 
the Aqueduct's long line of broken arches or the dim- 
ming perspective of that taut thread, the Appian Way. 
From this vantage-point the city may hide no surface 
secrets. It lies below us like an enormous fan, whose 



74 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

converging point is the round Piazza del Popolo, a 
good mile to the north. Like three great fingers, there 
extend from that focus the Via Ripetta, the Via Ba- 
buino, and, in the centre and running toward us as 
straight as a ruler, the popular Corso carrying the old 
Flaminian Way right through the heart of modern 
Rome. By degrees we come to distinguish familiar 
churches among the hundreds of spires, towers, and 
domes; to pick out, here and there, a mediaeval watch- 
tower; to locate well-known squares; to name an occa- 
sional obelisk; to identify a column; and even to par- 
ticularize some of the scores of fountains that give 
latter-day Rome a pleasant distinction among modern 
cities. The ribbed, blue-gray dome of St. Peter's looms 
impressively from out the deep green of the Papal Gar- 
dens of the yellow Vatican; the circular bulk of the 
Castle of Sant' Angelo and the columned Pantheon look 
as familiar as old friends to us — though they may not 
be friends to each other, with the latter, under papal 
stress, forced in other days to yield its beautiful bronze 
tiles to make saints' ornaments and cannon for the 
former; the yellow walls of the Sant' Onofrio monastery 
mark where died Tasso, "King of Bards," and where 
they still show his crucifix and inkstand; and yonder is 
the great gray church where Beatrice Cenci lies in her 
nameless grave. If we turn and look southward we see 
strange sun-tricks among the bleak and shadowy cor- 
ridors of the vast, half-demolished Colosseum, and 



ROME 75 

crumbling arches of the emperors warm into a venerable 
dotage. The sun-baked wreckage of the Forum ex- 
pands at our feet in rows of column stumps, shattered 
arches, isolated shafts with clinging fragments of cornice 
and entablature, yawning earthen doorways and dusty 
heaps of cluttered brick and tufa, — like a gigantic 
honeycomb, — while all about it birds are singing 
divinely in the shade of the laurels. The famed Tar- 
peian Rock, just at hand, has little suggestion of a short 
shrift for traitors, with rookeries nestling snugly to its 
base and a rose-trellised garden on its commodious 
summit. 

Victor Emmanuel II, in the regal cool of bronze, 
gazes over his colossal charger in the gigantic monument 
on the Capitoline slopes below us and beholds the hills 
studded with the pretty white villas of his grandson's 
prosperous subjects, and the Quarter of the Fields car- 
peted with the neat stucco homes of the poor that used 
to languish in the vile slums of the old Ghetto. Had he 
read Zola's "Rome " he might even be justified in frown- 
ing at so defamatory a description of so pleasant a sec- 
tion. But apparently he prefers to watch the afternoon 
glow on the gleaming domes and towers and myrtle- 
set villas of the Trastevere, where the powerful and vio- 
lent descendants of the ancient Romans still dwell; 
and to take amused note of Garibaldi over there twist- 
ing around on his big bronze horse to keep a wary eye 
on St. Peter's. 



76 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

It taxes the credulity of the visitor to comprehend 
that yonder is the renowned Janiculum, down whose 
slopes Lars Porsena led his troops to contend with 
Horatius Codes and his intrepid companions as they 
"held the bridge" — only a hundred yards from where 
we are standing. And, indeed, imagination is quite un- 
equal to the tasks set it on all this historic ground. 
Even if we succeed in carrying ourselves back through 
the periods of the popes, the emperors, the republic, 
the kings, and possibly the shepherds, what is to be- 
come of us when confronted with the statement of 
Ampere that there were really "nine Romes before 
Rome." It is quite enough to undertake the reconstruc- 
tion of ancient Rome to the mind's eye, such as authen- 
tic history describes it, considering how repeatedly its 
conquerers sacked it, and how both Nero and Robert 
Guiscard burned it; and that the Romans themselves, 
as Lanciani insists, have done more harm to it than all 
invading hosts put together. " What the Barbarians did 
not do," ran the famous pasquinade, "the Barberini 
did." It is, really, asking too much of the man who is 
risking "a touch of sun" to see the city from the swel- 
tering top of the Capitol Tower, to expect him to be 
communing with himself in terms of travertine and 
yeperino and reassembling antiquities as an agreeable 
pastime. He will probably content himself with a hasty 
glance around, and a little irreverent levity over the 
task of Ascanius, son of "the pious ^Eneas," in building 



ROME 77 

a city on the scraggy ridge of distant Alba Longa, or the 
scramble the Roman bachelors must have had when they 
scampered down the neighboring Quirinal Hill with their 
arms full of their Sabine allies' wives. As he trudges 
down the tower steps and catches periodic glimpses of 
that ancient Latium that is now the Campagna, he 
ought to devote a moment to self-congratulation that 
the pestilence no longer stalks there by night and noon- 
day, or that the evil campagnards of Andersen's "Im- 
provisatore" no more terrorize with impunity, or wild 
beasts imperil the wayfarer; but rather that these latter 
themselves flee, especially the foxes, what time the red- 
coated gentlemen of the English Hunt round on them 
among the shattered tombs of the Appian Way. 

And yet, if the visitor is a sentimentalist, no Italian 
sun is going to rob him of his reverie : he will be hearing 
the cries of the Christian martyrs at a Colosseum 
matinee, and beholding the pride and beauty of ancient 
Rome loitering along the palace-lined streets on their 
way to the afternoon diversions at the Baths of Cara- 
calla. And the Forum will bustle with the state business 
of the world, Cicero will mount the rostrum, and a train 
of Vestal Virgins pass demurely along the Sacra Via. 
He will attend the mournful wails of priests at worship 
in the temples of Jupiter and Saturn, and thrill to see 
a detachment of the Praetorian Guard dash into the 
Forum and acclaim some new military hero as emperor. 
But this should be sufficient to startle him back to the 



78 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Rome of to-day, and as he looks anxiously over to the 
northwestern walls, beyond which once stood that in- 
famous camp, he will doubtless rejoice devoutly that the 
sober and law-abiding soldiery that drills there now is 
something so very different from the uncontrollable 
"Frankenstein" that the Caesars devised to their own 
undoing. It is, in consequence, with hearty complacence 
that he will turn his back on even the aristocratic 
treasure-heap of the lordly Palatine, conscious that if the 
cry were raised to-day, "Why is the Forum crowded, 
what means this stir in Rome?" the reply would be 
forthcoming, "Tourists and picture-card sellers and 
peddlers of cameo pins." 

Parenthetically, it may be observed that, although 
pathos and bathos rub elbows in the foregoing reflec- 
tions, still incongruities come very near to being the 
rule in latter-day Rome. What is to be said of obelisks 
of the Pharaohs with Christian crosses on their tops? 
Of the column of Trajan with St. Peter at its summit, 
and at its base those twentieth-century cats that visit- 
ors feed with fish bought from stands at hand for the 
purpose? Of St. Paul on the column of Marcus Aure- 
lius, and the sign of an American life insurance com- 
pany across the street? Of a modern playhouse in the 
mausoleum of Augustus where the emperors were 
buried? Of the present use of King Tarquin's great 
sewer, the Cloaca Maxima, just as good as it was 
twenty-five hundred years ago? Of electric lights where 



ROME 79 

Cincinnatus had his cabbage-farm? Of a Jewish ceme- 
tery above the circus of Tarquiu? Of steam-heated flats 
in the gardens of Sallust? Of modern houses at the Tar- 
peian Rock, and the Baths of Agrippa? Of street cars 
with the name of Diocletian? Of automobiles on the 
Flaminian Way? Of tennis courts beside the burial- 
place of a Caesar? Of motor-cycles around the tomb of 
the Scipios? Of an annual Derby down the Appian 
Way? Of railroad trains beside the old Servian Wall? 
Of telephone booths on the banks of Father Tiber? 
Modernism is, indeed, with us, as his Holiness laments ! 
The sultry, torrid hour that lies between three o'clock 
and four of a summer afternoon usually sees Rome 
rubbing her eyes, fresh from her siesta, that ancient 
midday nap that Varro declared he could not live with- 
out; and you may be sure the final rub would be one of 
vast amusement if she were to see you walking on the 
sunny side of the street, where, by the terms of her im- 
memorial observation, only dogs and foreigners go. The 
heat is intense on these lava pavements; one keeps relig- 
iously to the shade. But Roman society is not rubbing 
its eyes, — at least, not in town, — for tout le monde 
is passing the annual villeggiatura at its villa in the hills 
or by the sea, economizing for the fashionable expendi- 
ture of the winter, and, incidentally, obliging the people 
who stay in town with that much more of elbow room 
on the Corso and other popular promenades. All of which 
helps a little in making the stroll from the Capitoline 



80 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Hill to the Pincian Gardens rather more comfortable 
than moving around the hot-room of a Turkish bath. 
As we pick our way down the Capitoline slope, pass 
Marcus Aurelius on his fat bronze steed, and "bend our 
steps," as the old novels used to say, toward the tram- 
way-haunted uproar of the Piazza di Venezia, the rabble 
rout of the slum district on the left affords a lively con- 
ception of the element that goes farthest to make Rome 
howl. Having been told that this old Ghetto had been 
swept and garnished, one is properly indignant at find- 
ing the air redolent of garlic and everybody under con- 
viction that the chief end of man is to amass macaroni 
and enjoy it forever. You gaze askance on a universal 
costume of filth and rags, and hurry along through it, 
protesting that, while you would not invoke the pre- 
cedent of Pope Paul IV's sixteenth-century method of 
putting gates across the streets, and locking the people 
in and making the men wear yellow hats and the women 
yellow veils, as he did with the Jews, still some expedi- 
ent ought to be hit upon for making the district look 
a little less like a camp of Falstaff recruits. "A frowzy- 
headed laborer," say you, "shouldering a basket of 
charcoal, may seem attractive in Mr. Storey's 'Roba 
di Roma,' but in real life one likes to think men can 
afford shirts, and not have to wear rags over their 
shoulders after the manner of a herald's tabard." You 
pause a moment to watch the disappearance of a yard 
of macaroni down some red gullet, and George Augustus 



ROME 81 

Sala's description of the banquet of the seven wagoners 
rushes to mind: "Upon this vast mess they fell tooth 
and nail. The simile is, perchance, not strictly correct. 
Teeth may be de trop. You should never bite or chew 
macaroni, but swallow each pipe whole, grease and all, 
as though it were so much flattery. But their nails they 
did use, seeing that they ate the macaroni with their 
fingers. What wondrous twistings and turnings-back 
of their heads, what play of the muscles of their throats, 
what straining of their eyeballs and vasty openings of 
their jaws, did I study as they swallowed their food." 
And now we begin to have the usual experience of 
Roman mendicancy. Truly, there is no beggar like 
your Roman beggar. He has raised his profession to 
both an art and a nuisance. Appeals to charity take 
every form and phase. Evidences of anatomical dis- 
aster are utilized to excite pity at so much per sigh. Tales 
of misery and misfortune ring all the changes of fer- 
vency and fancy. Their whines are both groveling and 
dramatic. "Niente!" they moan, as with woe-begone 
faces and pathetic twists of their necks they sidle up 
with stiff gestures of weary and hopeless expressiveness; 
" Illustrissimo ! Eccellenza! Per amor di Dio!" You 
could not bluff them, though you were armored in all 
the calloused nonchalance of the average ambulance 
surgeon; and your doom is sealed if you undertake to 
bandy repartee, for their invective is as searching as a 
satire of Juvenal. Whether you give or not, their volu- 



82 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

bility and frankness continue unabated; for you are 
savagely cursed if you decline, and if you acquiesce are 
blessed strictly in proportion to the gratuity. Indubi- 
tably, in the social scheme of the beggar we be bre- 
thren all and should each aid the other — after the phil- 
osophy of the Italian, saying, "One hand washes the 
other, and both the face." The Roman, understanding 
them, passes coolly by; but the foreigner, who is their 
special prey, gives up in desperation, on the principle of 
the local proverb, "We are in the ballroom and we must 
dance." 

Parenthetically, again, they say the authorities are 
helpless to curb this universal Roman nuisance. It is 
an institution. These beggars come of all classes — 
from the Capuchin and Franciscan lay brothers who go 
about in brown robes, rope girdles, and sandals and pre- 
sent a basket for food, to the dirty urchins of the Appian 
Way who stop your carriage with their acrobatic pro- 
ficiency and then howl for soldi in the name of all the 
saints. Many a beggar here is a bank depositor; and 
any of them who can retain the monopoly of the door 
of a popular church may confidently look forward to 
affluence. Very likely they are better business men, in 
their way, than many who drop coins into their pa- 
thetic, swindling hands. A chacun son metier. 

It would extend a Brooklynite to negotiate the cross- 
ing of the Piazza di Venezia. It is the grand gathering- 
place of tramcars, busses, cabs, carts, bicycles, and every 



ROME 83 

other form of conveyance. You will certainly find a 
"Seeing Rome" automobile, with the lecturer pointing 
out the castellated old Palazzo di Venezia and telling his 
people that it was built of stone from the Colosseum, 
and has been the seat of the Austrian embassy to the 
Curia for over a hundred years. So far as traffic is con- 
cerned, this is the heart of Rome. Nothing less than a 
whirlpool could be expected in a spot that is the con- 
fluence of such full streams of life as the Corso and the 
Via Nazionale. One admires its broad, busy sweep, and 
the dignity of the solid old gray buildings that rim it. No 
mid-afternoon heat lessens the bustle and activity that 
rages here; even the experienced natives can be found 
in large numbers, jostling their way across it, and visit- 
ors pass through in droves to reach the Cenci Palace 
or to see the spot where Paul dwelt for two years "in his 
own hired house." 

If you stopped, as I did, at one of the hotels near the 
Baths of Diocletian, the Via Nazionale will have a friendly 
suggestion of the nearest way home. With thoughts of 
that temporary home the recollection often comes to 
me of the mildly stimulating delight I once found in 
getting lost by night in this city of superior chance 
encounters. It seemed, on the first occasion, as though 
I had scarcely turned the corner into the Via Cavour 
before a delicious conviction of unfamiliarity with my 
surroundings assured me I was pursuing a course that 
was certain, sooner or later, to lead to artistic discovery 



84 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

or adventure. Nothing was easier than getting lost, for 
I was newly arrived; and yet localities and objects of 
consequence were not without significance, for, like 
every one else, I had a vivid idea of the landmarks of 
the famous city. And first of all, I discovered I was pass- 
ing the infamous spot where "the impious Tullia" 
drove her chariot across the bleeding body of her royal 
father; whence I hastened on, with furtive glances. 
Next, after some speculation I identified an enormous 
church to be none other than the famous Santa Maria 
Maggiore, whose ceilings, I had read, were crusted 
with the first gold brought from the New World, and 
to whose high altar the popes used to come by torchlight 
for New Year's mass. I thrilled at the incredible reflection 
that the street cars crossing that corner would be pass- 
ing, a moment later, the site of the gardens of Maecenas 
where Horace and Virgil had mused and read their verses. 
A few blocks farther on I came to a halt before the house 
of Lucrezia Borgia ; and I tried to fancy the circumstances 
of the night of their quiet family supper there, before 
the children took leave of their mother with false words 
of affection and Caesar hurried to gather his bravos 
and overtook Francesco, and, muffled in a cloak, sat his 
horse in easy unconcern while his brother was done to 
death and thrown into the Tiber. For relief I turned 
across the street to the church of St. Peter-in-Chains, 
and imagined how Michael Angelo's vigorous Moses 
might be appearing in the dark of the side aisle, and 



ROME 85 

thought of the master striking the completed work 
with his mallet and crying out, "Now, speak!" On I 
rambled, through a block or two of darkened shops and 
gloomy houses, and suddenly a great open space yawned 
before me and I was staring at rows of column stumps, 
mellowed and battered, and among them a tall, ghostly 
shaft of marble with a spiral band of half -mutilated 
reliefs winding away up to the summit, where was the 
dusky outline of a sculptured form. It was the old school - 
geography picture come to life ! There was I in the heart 
of an unfamiliar city, alone, by night, with this vast 
relic of the ancients. It was like Stanley finding Liv- 
ingstone in Africa. I felt I had honestly discovered it 
and that it ought to be mine. It was the Forum of 
Trajan! 

It will seem a violent transition to jump from mid- 
night to mid-afternoon, but the plunge must be taken. 
The normal state of the Corso at three-thirty of a sum- 
mer afternoon is one of leisurely activity. The crowds 
are lethargic, slow-moving, inclined to curiosity. An in- 
teresting social comedy is proceeding, with foreign ladies 
playing sight-seeing roles, clutching their red Baedek- 
ers and Hare's "Walks in Rome." Jostling groups 
of them gather before the beguiling shop windows, 
and occasionally one enters and possesses herself of a 
Roman pearl or cameo, or perhaps a mosaic or copy of 
an antique bronze. Business people pass along in their 
habitually distrait manner, and priests beyond number 



86 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

brighten the scene with habits of every hue. There is 
little enough of room in the middle of J;he street and 
scarcely any on the sidewalks. Like all Roman thorough- 
fares, the Corso is clean and distinguished. Long per- 
spectives of gayly awninged shops extend toward the 
Piazza del Popolo, agreeably broken here and there by 
the interposition of mellow old palace fronts and richly 
sculptured baroque fagades; and there is frequent op- 
portunity for passing glimpses into cool courtyards at- 
tractive with foliage and fountains. 

Visitors keep forsaking the Corso at every turning 
to make inspiring discoveries in the tangled mesh of side 
streets. We are at liberty to suspect those who go to the 
west, of sentimental designs on the star under the dome 
of a neighboring church that marks the spot where 
Julius Caesar was assassinated in Pompey's Senate 
House; or, perhaps, of an intention to visit the sombre 
statue of Giordano Bruno in the Field of Flowers, and 
reflect upon what a constant rebuke it must be to the 
church that burned him there, three centuries ago, for 
persisting in his "modernism" to the outrageous ex- 
tremity of defending the astronomical discoveries of 
Copernicus and like heresies of the hour. 

Afternoon walks in Rome should be frequently in- 
terrupted, not only to escape the floods of sunshine, but 
to find out occasionally what is behind the mellow 
garden walls over whose tops glistening, green foliage 
droops enticingly down with hints of cool and restful 



ROME 87 

retreats. Such an opportunity presents itself here in the 
rare Colonna Gardens, just around the corner of the 
great Colonna Palace where earlier in the day theTitians 
and Tintorettos ravish the artistic. Spacious, elegant 
Rome has nothing more charming and exquisite than 
such gardens as these. Art and antiquity are everywhere 
in restful profusion — "storied urn and animated bust." 
It is even said that sculptures are to be found almost 
anywhere underground for the mere pains of exhuming. 
One rests with infinite satisfaction in the deep shade of 
eucalyptus, cypress, ilex, and laurel, to the sweet sing- 
ing of multitudes of birds. There are roses and oranges 
in bloom, and tall hedges of clipped box, and musical 
little cascades tumble down from terrace to terrace and 
drip over mossy marble steps. In this particular garden 
come thoughts of Michael Angelo and Vittoria Colonna, 
who so often strolled along these very paths and com- 
muned in their serene and beautiful friendship. Theirs 
was a faith that brought its own reward. 

And what, pray, without its amazing faith, would this 
Catholic Rome be, anyway? A chaque saint sa chandelle. 
Otherwise, what would become of that marble block 
from the floor of the Appian Way — which the stubborn 
archaeologists will insist was really paved with silex — 
that is preserved with so much reverence in the church 
of Domine Quo Vadis, as showing the impressions of the 
feet of Our Lord and St. Peter when they faced each 
other there on the occasion of the memorable rebuke 



88 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

of the latter for his proposed flight from Rome? And 
how about the scala santa — the worn and venerated 
marble steps in the shrine near the church of St. John 
Later an, which were brought from Jerusalem and up 
which we are told Christ passed on his way to the judg- 
ment seat of Pilate? The faithful thank God for the 
privilege of ascending them on their knees, praying, and 
receiving the indulgence of a thousand years of purg- 
atory; and they were worn thin with kisses long before 
the day when Martin Luther got halfway up and sud- 
denly quit and came tramping down with a voice 
crying in his ears, "The just shall live by faith." And 
without faith, where would be the use of the miraculous 
Bambino, the adored and bejeweled little wooden image 
that a Franciscan pilgrim carved from a tree of the 
Mount of Olives and which is imposingly domiciled in 
a glass case in the church of Ara Cceli? They say there 
is no disease that the Bambino cannot cure; and when 
his keepers accompany him through the streets on his 
errands of mercy, conveyed in his magnificent buff 
coach, people kneel by hundreds and beseech a bless- 
ing. Such blessing may be secured, though possibly of a 
diminished efficacy, by buying one of his legended cards 
at the church and having the priest rub it across the 
glass top of the case. Who would eschew faith and for- 
feit such advantages? Would we not still have Life's 
puzzle, and without this key? Might we not even be 
reduced to a plane as confused and desperate as that of 



ROME 89 

the famous Sultan of Turkey, who knew so little of 
music that, when his new Italian band had finished 
tuning-up, he shouted in delight to the leader, "Mar- 
shallah! Let the dogs play that tune again!" 

At this languorous hour of the afternoon the broad, 
sunny piazzas with their many fountains afford incom- 
parably lovely loitering-places on the way to the Pin- 
cio. The one of the Quirinal is a near neighbor to the 
Colonna Gardens, and there you may shelter under 
eucalyptus trees and dream over the brown old obelisk 
and the vigorous fountain sculptures of the "horse- 
tamers" that once graced the Baths of Constantine, 
and philosophize over the irony of fate that converted 
a papal summer residence into a royal palace. Or you 
can thread your way through narrow streets of the 
Middle Ages that are lined by ochre-colored houses with 
sun-shades, where artists have their studios and trans- 
ients their hotels garnis, and down which a belated wine- 
cart may jangle or a gayly painted Campagna wagon 
creak, with its oxen festive in bells and crimson tassels 
and its rugged driver clad in blue. Were you to follow 
these typical byways of mediaeval Rome until you came 
to the embankment of the Sant' Angelo Bridge, you 
would pass by where Benvenuto Cellini lived among his 
goldsmiths, and could identify the Gothic window of 
the old Inn of the Bear where Montaigne stopped, cent- 
uries ago. 

At this hour the Trevi Fountain is doubly appealing 



90 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

and refreshing, rejoicing the whole side of its roomy 
square with sparkling waters that dash merrily about 
Neptune and his allies in the wall niches. Devoted as 
one may be to the venerable tomb of Cecilia Metella, on 
the Appian Way, he will fervently commend Pope Cle- 
ment for having pillaged some of its stone to supply 
this cheery fountain with its dramatic setting. Were 
this our last day in the city we should certainly toss a 
copper coin over our left shoulder into these boiling 
waters, to insure a return to Rome. Of course, one is 
pretty sure to come again anyhow; but that makes it a 
certainty. Besides, it is much less trouble than going 
away out to Tivoli to ask the same thing of the Sibyl 
in the Grotto. 

Were you to yield to the fountain habit, you would 
go bird-hopping all over town, for no city has so many 
or such beautiful ones as Rome, thanks to its huge aque- 
ducts. It is a never-failing delight to turn a corner and 
come across one of these sun-deluged pleasaunces with 
its crowds of picturesque loungers; its tritons, "rivers," 
and sea gods disporting themselves in attitudes of aque- 
ous grace and gayety; its flower-girls banked behind 
fragrant barriers of roses and violets; and the slender 
columns of water streaming sideways like tattered flags 
in a breeze. 

Mid-afternoon is an admirable time to drop in at the 
most popular of all the piazzas, the Spanish Square. 
One wonders how the jewelers of the Via Condotti 















C>^ : ~ ft 




Hl^i 



ROME, THE PIAZZA DI SPAGNA 



ROME 91 

manage to make both ends meet, with such a superior 
attraction at hand. It is certainly one of the most 
charming nooks in Rome. A heavy golden sunshine 
glorifies, at this hour, the broad reach of the Spanish 
Steps, themselves quite as wide as the square, that 
sweep between picturesque parapets like a yellow 
cascade from the terraces of the church at S. Trinita 
de' Monte to the boat-shaped fountain in the piazza 
below. About them, drowsy, dusty, Old- World houses 
supply a pleasant background of soft color, and the 
crystal-clear Italian sky spreads above like a cathedral 
dome. The flower market is the crowning touch, with a 
flood of fragrant blooms welling over the lower steps and 
rimming the fountain edge in brilliant hues of purple 
Roman anemones, orange wallflowers, white narcissus, 
golden daffodils, snowy gardenias, violets, camelias, 
hyacinths, mignonettes, and every fair and odorous 
blossom. A lovely, sunny, fragrant spot — this Piazza 
di Spagna; a place to dream whole days away in; a 
well-beloved corner of fascinating Rome, where one 
may realize to its fullness the beautiful, consoling reflec- 
tion of Don Quixote, "But still there's sunshine on the 
wall." 

Literature has had its chosen seat in the Piazza di 
Spagna. Half the traveled world of letters has lived or 
visited there. It invests the spot with a fresh and human 
interest to know that it has been the musing-place of 
such rare spirits as Byron, Smollett, Madame de Stael, 



92 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Cooper, Andersen, Thorwaldsen, Hawthorne, Goethe, 
Chateaubriand, Dickens, Scott, Macaulay, George Eliot, 
Lowell, and Longfellow. One thinks of the Brownings 
entertaining Thackeray, Lockhart, and Fanny Kemble. 
But, of course, the closest memories are of Keats and 
Shelley, who lived in either corner house — those ra- 
diant friends whose ashes repose under myrtles and 
violets in the cypress-shaded cemetery beyond the Au- 
relian Wall. The works of all these authors, as also of 
the others who may or may not have seen the Piazza di 
Spagna, — along with the idealism of Fogazzaro, the 
sensuality of D' Annunzio, the realism of Verga, and 
the grace of De Amicis, — are to be had at the cele- 
brated shops of Piale or Spithover, in the square; where, 
also, you may at little expense become a momentary 
part of Rome's bohemia over toast and muffins in the 
adjoining tea-rooms. 

Chacun a son gout. If you are cold to tea there may 
be something else to interest in the numerous cafes of the 
neighborhood that begin to hum with activity as the 
hour approaches four. And, indeed, they may be angels 
in disguise for such as have tried pension life and grown 
sadly familiar with puddings as mysterious as Scotch 
haggis, meat that suggested travertine, and pies con- 
structed of something like silex and tufa. Besides, in 
the cafes you can regale yourself with vermouth, syrups, 
or ices, and at the same time observe the Roman at his 
afternoon ease — thus realizing in yourself the acute- 



ROME 93 

ness of the Italian proverb, "One blow at the hoop 
and one at the cask." It is quite worth the cost to see 
how quickly the chairs and little marble-topped tables, 
out on the sidewalk, are taken by leisurely habitues 
bent on gossip; by precise old gentlemen in lavender 
gloves who drop in for a tumbler of black coffee and a 
hand at dominoes; or by foppish young men in duck 
trousers, who clatter on the tables for the cameriere to 
bring copies of the "Tribuna" so they may sup on 
frivolities and horrors along with coffee and tobacco. 

A ruder jocundity also, at this time, is making its 
start for high tide in poorer sections, where in arbored 
osteries, Tuscan wine-shops, and spacci da vino straw- 
covered fiascos of chianti are passing, along with glasses 
of local wines whose prices will be found conspicuously 
chalked up on the outsides of the taverns at so many 
soldi per half-litre. 

As we follow the Corso toward the Pincian Gardens 
we find the congestion increasing, with a decided addi- 
tion of carriages all bound in our direction. It is now 
the hour of the afternoon passeggiata; and one marvels 
that the ancient campus Martius should still be the 
heart of Rome, and wonders how this narrow street 
could have held its crowds when the mad, brilliant 
scenes of Carnival riot and revelry were enacted before 
these old Renaissance palaces. Every restaurant of the 
tumultuous Piazza Colonna is working to capacity, 
and groups of gay army officers swagger about the cor- 



94 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

ners and over by the marble basin beside the Column 
of Marcus Aurelius where the taxi-cabs have their chief 
stand. No red-and-white street car dares venture in this 
favorite square, but busses and cabs supplant them to 
distraction. And who, indeed, does not prefer an omni- 
bus to a street car! It may want the latter's business- 
like directness, but what a holiday air it has of cozy, 
informal deliberateness ! It is coaching in town. You 
may not arrive so soon, but what a lark you had ! And 
if you mock at the faithful bus, there are the imper- 
tinent Roman cabs. Here is speed, seclusion, and 
economy. You cannot fail to be suited both financially 
and aesthetically, for you may pick between the latest 
varnished output of the factory and venerable, decrepit 
ramshackles that look to have been contemporary with 
the Colosseum. The Roman cabmen are an inconse- 
quent lot; they wear green felt hats and greasy coats, 
and dash at one with a reckless scorn of human life that 
strengthens a suspicion that they are really banditti of 
the Campagna, transparently disguised. The famous 
Column of the philosophic Emperor never lacks its 
groupings of adaptable "rubber-necks," who are twist- 
ing themselves into suicide graves trying to read the 
spiral band of reliefs that winds away up to the statue 
of St. Paul. 

The Corso passeggiata is an interesting affair. Toward 
four o'clock it quite fills the street. Young girls are 
out, with their inevitable chaperons, kittenish and alert- 



ROME 95 

eyed; Bergamasque nurses, with scarlet ribbons and 
extraordinary silver ornaments falling below their 
snowy muslin caps; clerks in sober black; Douane men, 
in short capes and shining hats with yellow rosettes; hat- 
less women, with light mantillas over their blue-black 
hair; the stolid country-folk, — the contadini, — with 
the men in brown velvet jackets and goatskin breeches, 
and the women in faded blue skirts and with red stays 
stitched outside their bodices; the despised forestieri, 
with guidebooks; carabinieri, in pairs, resplendent in 
braided uniforms and cocked hats; the nervous Ber- 
saglieri, with shining round hats and glossy cocks'- 
feather plumes; army officers in cloaks or bright blue 
guard-coats, fresh from vermouth at Aragni's; Savoy- 
ards in steel helmets and gold crests; diplomats in 
silk hats and Prince Albert coats; and clericals by the 
hundreds. The clericals, indeed, may always be relied 
upon to supply an effective color-touch anywhere in 
Rome. They come along in fluttering groups of every 
hue: English and French seminarists in cassocks of 
black, Germans in scarlet, Scotch in purple, and Rou- 
manians in orange and blue; it is diverting to see them 
raise their black beavers to one another with the quiet- 
est and most serious air imaginable. Solemn lay breth- 
ren shuffle past in sombre brown of Franciscan and 
Capuchin, or white of the cowled and tonsured Domini- 
cans. Occasionally, along a side street, one passes slowly, 
absorbed in his breviary, like Don Abbondio in "I Pro- 



96 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

messi Sposi." Rome abounds in shovel-hats, shaven 
heads, sandals, and hempen girdles. But you must not 
expect to see them all in a Corso passeggiata. 

Unless we have yielded too much to the blandishments 
along the way, we should be crossing the sunny, som- 
nolent circle of the Piazza del Popolo and climbing the 
fountained and statue-set terraces of the Pincian Gar- 
dens as the first strains of the promenade concert usher 
in the hour of four. The spectacle that confronts us on 
the low, broad brow of the old hill is animated and bril- 
liant. Hundreds of motor-cars, private carriages and 
hired cabs roll in a long, gay procession around the 
driveways, their occupants arrayed in the last word of 
Italian fashion, and a multitude of happy loiterers 
stroll leisurely in the mild afternoon sunshine along 
sylvan paths hedged with box or bordered with flowers, 
where long lines of marble portrait-busts of Italy's dead 
immortals extend into the pleasant shade of groves of 
myrtles and fragrant acacias. What a contrast in oc- 
cupation to the scenes that in olden days were enacted 
here — the luxury and splendor of the golden suppers 
that the war-worn Lucullus gave to Rome's poets and 
artists ; or the vicious and voluptuous orgies with which 
the vile Messalina indulged the depraved favorites of 
the Claudian court! Young Rome, this afternoon, has 
decked itself in its gayest raiment, and youth vies with 
youth in gallantries to the fashionable beauties who pre- 
fer the fascinating town, even in summer, to the listless 



ROME 97 

diversions of the country. "Visiting" goes on between 
carriage-parties, which is said to answer the social re- 
quirements of calls at the house. Mild refreshments 
are being served in a lively little cafe to which many 
repair when weary with lounging among the brilliant 
flowers and lovely foliaged paths; and groups ramble 
across the new viaduct and stroll among the sycamores 
and stone-pines of the neighboring Villa Borghese. 
The Pincian Gardens seem very formal and compact 
and precisely ornate as compared with our parks at 
home, but there is much more of sociability and com- 
fort than is to be found Sunday afternoons in New York's 
Central Park, for instance. That is probably because 
New York's pedestrians are centred in the Mall to hear 
the band, or around the lakes to watch the boating, and 
all her carriage-folk are by themselves in the East Side 
Drive. The Pincian promenade mingles both classes into 
a great family party. It is a brilliant scene, but it must 
have been much more so in other days when the popes 
joined the company in the great glass coach drawn by 
six black horses in crimson trappings, and outriders and 
footmen flocked about them. 

One wonders whether Pius X does not sometimes 
think with a sigh of regret of the liberties of his early 
predecessors, as he paces the flowered garden paths of 
his voluntary prison and lifts his gentle, shining face 
toward these pleasant Pincian heights. How often will 
the memory recur to me of that mild and friendly 



98 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

man, as once I saw him in the Vatican's Court of the 
Pine, in his snowy robes and the little cap scarce whiter 
than his hair. I remember his only ornaments to have 
been the famous Fisherman's ring, and a long gold 
chain about his neck from which a great crucifix was 
pendent. It was the occasion of a calisthenic drill given 
by a local orphan asylum for his Holiness's special bene- 
fit. Each little athlete in gray was burning to do his 
very best in so notable a presence, and was, indeed, suc- 
ceeding, with the glaring exception of the smallest of 
the band, whose eager efforts had resulted only in an un- 
interrupted series of comical mischances, to the infinite 
chagrin of himself and associates and the increasing 
amusement of the Pope. In due time the performance 
came to an end, and the boys were drawn up facing 
each other in a double line through which, attended by 
cardinals, chamberlains, and members of the Papal 
Guard, his Holiness passed extending his hand to be 
kissed. When he reached the diminutive and blushing 
blunderer, he halted his imposing train and laid his 
hand on the boy's head and smoothed his hair and 
patted his cheek with affectionate tenderness, whisper- 
ing the while an intimate message of good cheer, as 
though it were something strictly confidential between 
himself and that fatherless little waif whose face was 
shining with reverence and awe and whose eyes were 
full of happy tears. I am, I trust, as confirmed a 
Protestant as the next, but I confess that my heart 



ROME 99 

was bowed as well as my head as that white-robed figure 
turned, as it disappeared through a door of the Vatican, 
and raised a hand toward us in the sign of the cross. 

The marble parapet of the Pincio is, at this hour, 
a prime favorite among Roman loafing-places. As from 
an upper theatre box, one looks precipitously down into 
the great, peaceful, siesta-drugged circle of the Piazza 
del Popolo, the scene in other days of so much cruelty 
and often of so much happiness. The stone lions of 
the fountain spout patiently to the delighted observa- 
tion of scores of playing children, and drowsy cabmen 
nod on the boxes of the long rank of waiting victorias. 
One may indulge to his fullest in moral reflections over 
the slender obelisk from the Heliopolis Temple to the 
Sun, upon which Moses himself may have gazed in 
days before Rome was thought of, and when the celestial 
consorts, Isis and Osiris, still waved their lotus sceptres 
and ruled the quick and the dead. Nineteen hundred 
years ago Nero, who should have begun blood-letting 
with himself instead of ending it there, was buried 
in this ground, and you are told how the evil spirits 
that haunted the accursed spot were not finally exor- 
cised until yonder church of Santa Maria had been 
reared above his tomb. One will find it more agreeable 
to look across the piazza at the portal of the Flaminian 
Way and re-create the scenes of the triumphant en- 
trance of the noble, hardy Trajan walking by the side 
of his fair and amiable wife. 



100 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

The elm-tops are rustling in the deep groves of the 
Villa Borghese, and the yellow Tiber, "too large to be 
harmless and too small to be useful," slips swiftly be- 
tween the yellow walls of its quays. To the mind's eye, 
in the azure distance Mons Sacer is clear, and Tivoli and 
the Sabine Farm of Horace. Like the Archangel Michael 
on the Castle of Sant' Angelo, the sun, too, begins to 
sheathe his sword, and its glitter throws a warm mantle 
over the shoulders of the marble angels on the bridge. 
Most conspicuously, as is proper, it lingers on the pale 
dome of St. Peter's, touches into life the sculptured 
saints of the portico, and floods obelisk, fountains, and 
all that vast elliptical piazza toward which are extended 
the sheltering arms of Bernini's colonnade. How fair, 
beneath that roof, are the dazzling marbles, shining 
tombs, sculptured effigies, and glowing mosaics! But 
fairer far is this prospect from the hill, of Rome in her 
soft coat of many colors, the velvety ruins of the Pala- 
tine, the stone-pines in sentinel stiffness down the dis- 
tant Appian Way, the sunny piazzas, the sparkling 
fountains, and the verdure and bloom of the slopes of 
the Janiculum, under the cloudless blue of a soft Italian 
sky. Ave, Roma eternal 



PRAGUE 

4 P.M. TO 5 P.M. 





*!* 



PRAGUE 

4 P.M. TO 5 P.M. 

A brooding, stolid city is Prague; the sombre capital 
of a restless, feverish people. It is the hotbed and 
"darling seat" of all Bohemia; and Bohemia languishes 
for her lost independence as Israel did by the waters 
of Babylon. She does not, however, pine in hopeless 
despair like the Hebrews, but nourishes a keen expect- 
ation of regaining her lost estate, and grits her teeth, 
in the mean while, with fiery impatience. She points, 
and with reason, to the fact that the Slavs — Czechs, 
Slovaks, and Moravians — easily outnumber the Hunga- 
rians; yet Hungary is free, and she in bondage. And so 
Bohemia, for all her exterior of gracious courtesy, is bitter 
and hard at heart; a people of a passionate, thwarted pa- 
triotism; a people that has suffered and been degraded, 
but that has never for a moment forgotten. Prague is 
an expression of all this; in her sullen, gloomy architect- 
ure; in the persistence of national types and charac- 
teristics; and peculiarly in the wild, reckless Moldau, 
which visualizes the traditional, savage intolerance 
that is bred in the bone of the fatalistic Slav. 

There are too many daws about for Prague to wear 



104 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

her heart on her sleeve, so while she bides her time she 
presents a smiling mask. It may sometimes be a rather 
weary smile, and the forests that engulf her are gloomy 
and sinister; but her skies are not always lowering and 
overcast, and the peace of her fatigue from the national 
struggle is profound. It is just this deep, brooding peace 
that appeals to the stranger within her gates; and along 
with it he senses here a wonderful charm and underlying 
subtility that invests this curious old city with a lambent 
play of the imagination. 

It was of Prague that Alexander von Humboldt 
said: "It is the most beautiful inland city I have ever 
seen." And it must have been of some such spot that 
"R. L. S." was mindful when he expressed the paradox 
that "any place is good enough to live a life in, while 
it is only in a few, and those highly favored, that we can 
pass a few hours agreeably." Restfulness is surely one 
of the prime essentials of the "highly favored" few; 
and there is no restfulness at all comparable with that 
we feel in some venerated spot whose present hush and 
quiet is a reaction from its other days of fever and tur- 
moil. One finds these qualities in Prague, whose calm 
and serenity seem doubly intense in contrast with its 
history of tumult and savagery and the hatred and vio- 
lence that racked and convulsed it for hundreds of years. 
It has frequently been lightly disposed of as being an 
"out-of-the-way place"; but no place is more delightful 
than an "out-of-the-way" place, and particularly when 



PRAGUE 105 

it has the natural and architectural beauty of this one, 
or has been the theatre of such unusual and stirring 
occurrences. 

Had we but one hour to spend in Prague we should 
certainly choose the charmed one between four and 
five o'clock of an afternoon. The sunshine is then most 
languid and golden, and the day declines slowly over 
the castled tops of the Hradschin-crowned slope, and 
the lengthening shadows of towers and turrets creep 
out on the river, and the copper domes and ruddy tiles 
of the Neustadt glow in bright spots against the darkling 
green of the wooded hillsides. If one does not then feel 
a profound and elevating sense of tranquillity and trans- 
lating beauty, it will be because he has eyes to see yet 
sees not. 

Since Prague rests under the imputation of being 
"out of the way," — and even Shakespeare set this in- 
land kingdom down as "a desert country near the sea," 
and lost his compass completely in the shipwreck in the 
"Winter's Tale" with Antigonus exclaiming: "Our 
ship hath touch'd upon the deserts of Bohemia"; and 
a confused mariner replying, "Aye, my lord; and 
fear we've landed in ill time," — we may, perhaps, 
be pardoned for observing that in general appearance 
it is a wooded valley traversed in its full length by a 
swift, turbulent river, which follows a northerly course 
excepting where it bends sharply to the east in the very 
heart of the city. This stream, the Moldau, rushes along 



106 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

as if in desperate haste to throw itself into the Elbe, and 
seems to have the one idea, as it dashes through Prague, 
of getting done with its business and on its way at the 
earliest moment possible. It has scoured its islands into 
ovals, slashed the rocky bases of the hills, and continu- 
ally assailed its bridges and quays. But through all its 
exhibitions of ill humor the Praguers have indulgently 
condoned and even extolled it; it was only when the 
beloved and venerated Karlsbriicke fell a partial victim 
to its violence, a dozen years ago, that patience ceased 
to be a virtue and the unnatural marauder was compre- 
hensively anathematized with all the sibilant fury of 
the hissing tongue of the Czech. Speed apart, there is 
little to complain of with theMoldau; it is broad and of 
a pleasant deep blue, and the beauty it supplies to the 
setting of the city is supplemented by the importance 
of its traffic, the amusements on its many little wooded 
islands, and the delights of its boating and bathing. In 
a word, it is a noble stream — and none the less Bo- 
hemian, perhaps, for being a little proud and head- 
strong. 

As the afternoon sun lies heavy over Prague one 
notes with delight how snugly the old city nestles along 
the river and up the hillsides of the valley, and with 
what a natural and comfortable air; not at all as though 
trying, as newer cities do, to shoulder its suburbs out 
of the way. It seems a perfect type of the mediaeval 
town, with buildings of solid stone of an agreeable and 



PRAGUE 107 

universal creamy tone, four-square and enduring. It 
abounds in quaint, high pitched roofs; incurious, tur- 
reted spires; in red tiles and green copper domes; and 
in objects of antique and archaic fascination. Shade 
trees are everywhere. Indeed, from the thickly wooded 
heights of the surrounding hills right down to the river 
quays the gray of the houses and the red and green of 
the roofs make beautiful color combinations with the 
feathery foliage. 

One stands on the old Karlsbrucke and looks up- 
stream and there he sees the rocky heights of the Wysche- 
hrad Hill on which the fair and wise Libussa reared her 
castle when she laid the foundations of the city, thirteen 
centuries ago, and which he will want to visit later to 
look over the fortifications and to study the glowing 
frescoes on the cloister walls of the Benedictine monas- 
tery of Emmaus. In the elbow of the Moldau, down- 
stream, he will observe the old sections of Prague 
huddled together in cramped confusion, with no sign 
left of the ancient separating walls that once defined the 
original seven districts, though he is to learn, by and 
by, that the early names remain unchanged — the 
Aldstadt, and the Jewish Josephstadt, and around and 
above them the Neustadt, which, of course, from an 
American time-point, is really not "new" at all. On 
his left, along the river, he sees the Kleinseite spread 
out, and on the hillside above it that far-famed acro- 
polis, the redoubtable Hradschin, with its dusty, bar- 



108 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

racks-like royal and state palaces, and the great bulk 
of the cathedral of St. Vitus rising out of it like some 
man-made mount. Such is the first bird's-eye impres- 
sion of Prague, set in its wooded slopes, stolid and softly 
colored. Later on one can scrape acquaintance with its 
rambling, flourishing, modern suburbs, to the eastward 
and downstream, and wrestle at his pleasure with such 
impressive nomenclature as Karolinenthal and Bubna- 
Holeschowitz. 

Between four and five o'clock the visitor will find an 
especial pleasure in noting the activities that prevail in 
the several little green islands that fret the impetuous 
Moldau as it hurries through this "hundred-towered, 
golden Prague." The dearest of these to the sentimental 
Czech is bright Sophien-Insel, that you could almost 
leap onto from the stone coping of the neighboring 
Kaiser-Franzbriicke. It always wears a gay and in- 
viting appearance, with cafe tables set under fine old 
oaks, but precisely at four, summer afternoons, the 
leader of its military band lifts his baton and launches 
some crashing prelude, and the noisy company instantly 
stills and with nervously tapping fingers and glowing 
eyes abandons itself to that music passion which is the 
deepest and most intense expression of the Bohemian 
temperament. It gives the dilettante a new conception 
of the power of this inspiring art to observe the signifi- 
cant and varying expressions that play over the faces of 
a Prague audience under its influence. He witnesses 



I 



&l 




....'. 




PRAGUE, THE CASTLE FROM THE OLD BRIDGE 



PRAGUE 109 

then the profoundest stirring of the Slavic nature and 
the moving of emotional depths beyond the conception 
of the reserved and impassive Anglo-Saxon. Especially 
is this so when the music is of a national character, such 
as the "Ma Vlast" symphonic poems of Smetana, or 
a Slavic dance of Dvorak's. These Bohemian masters, 
with their fellow countryman, Fibich, constitute a 
trinity that is reverenced in their native land to an extent 
that almost passes belief, and that has done so much in 
making Prague one of the foremost centres of Europe. 
The music from the Sophien-Insel floats down the 
river to our vantage-point on Karlsbrucke, mellowed 
and softened, and contributes just the right pleasing 
note to the agreeable mood these picturesque surround- 
ings excite. The ponderous, antique old structure on 
which we stand has the appearance of some full-page 
color illustration for a charming Middle- Age romance. 
For half a millennium it has dug its broad arches into 
the bottom of the Moldau, stoutly defiant of flood or 
storm. Its massive buttresses are crowned with heroic 
statues so deeply revered that pilgrimages are made by 
the faithful to pay their devotions before them. For a 
third of a mile this old veteran strides the stream, and 
at each end he lifts an amazing mediaeval tower well 
worth a journey to stare at. These ponderous structures, 
weathered by centuries of storm to a rich brownish 
black, are pierced by a deep Gothic archway through 
which the street traffic pours all day. Their sides are 



110 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

decorated with colonnades and traceries, armorial 
bearings and statues of ancient heroes of the city, and 
their tops are incredible creations of slender turrets and 
of pointed roofs so desperately precipitate that they 
seem like long narrow paving-stones tilted end to end. 
Catholic legend and ceremonial run riot on the old 
bridge. The statues are almost altogether of a religious 
character, and two of them, the Crucifixion Group and 
the bronze one of St. John Nepomuc, are practically 
never passed without the sign of the cross and the rais- 
ing of hat or cap; in the case of the latter the devout will 
touch the tablet that marks the spot from which he is 
said to have been cast into the river, and then kiss 
their fingers and bless themselves. For St. John Nepo- 
muc, of all the holy martyrs, was Prague's very own. 
The legend is dramatic. Father John was the queen's 
confessor, five hundred years ago, and when he declined 
to oblige the king by revealing what the queen had told 
under the seal of the confessional, his Majesty had him 
summarily cast into the Moldau, from just where we 
are standing at the centre of this bridge. The result 
was far from the expectations of the king, for not only 
was the poor priest preserved from sinking, but — 
which is quite as hard to believe of so swift a stream 
as this — he actually remained floating for four days at 
the very spot where he fell, and five bright stars hung 
above him all the while ! When they took him out he was 
dead, and to this extent only did the king succeed. As 



PRAGUE 111 

was perfectly natural, the amazed Praguers could see 
nothing in all this but an astounding miracle; and when 
Catholicism had finally displaced the Protestantism 
that followed the Hussite wars for two hundred years, 
their clamor for the canonization of Father John event- 
ually resulted in placing the name of St. John Nepomuc 
in the catalogue of Rome. Equipped with a saint all 
their own, they adroitly converted the statues of the 
Protestant John Huss, that stood here and there about 
town, into St. John Nepomucs by the simple expedient 
of adding a five-starred halo to each. 

Now, if to-day were the sixteenth of May, St. John 
Nepomuc's special day, we should behold the greatest 
festival of all the year. An altar would be erected be- 
side his statue, here on the bridge, and mass celebrated 
before enormous kneeling crowds. Bohemian peasants 
would flock into town from miles and miles around, in 
all the picturesque finery of the national dress, gala per- 
formances would be given at the theatres, an especial 
illumination of the city made at public expense, and 
fireworks displayed to-night on Schutzen-Insel. It would 
be an orderly celebration, too, for the Czechs are more 
fond of dancing than drinking; and religious enthusiasm 
would be practically universal, for Prague, which for 
two centuries was exclusively Protestant, now num- 
bers at least nine Catholics out of every ten of its 
people. 

As we look about us this afternoon we derive a 



112 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

vivid consciousness of being very far from home, set 
down in an environment that is, for Europe, oddly 
foreign and unfamiliar. The soft, sibilant prattle of the 
Czechish speech is heard on every hand, and the names 
on cars and corners are outlandish to us, with their pro- 
fusion of consonants and curious accent marks like our 
o and v. One sees a great disproportion in numbers be- 
tween the German and Czechish population; only thir- 
teen to the hundred are said to be German, but in the 
opinion of Bohemians that is too many, for the stub- 
born struggle for the existence of the old national speech 
and spirit against the threatening usurpation of the 
Teutonic invaders is a real matter of life and death. 
As we watch the crowds throng along the bridge the 
prevalence of the Slavic type is very noticeable: short 
of body, heavy of head, and with high cheek bones and 
coarse features. The general expression is one of settled 
melancholy, bred of their peculiar fatalism. Having 
heard the "Bohemian Girl" and read the foundation- 
less libels of popular French literature, one looks about 
for gypsies; he will be lucky if he finds one. Bohemia, as 
he should have known, is one of the leading industrial 
countries of Europe, and Prague is made up of hard- 
working, skillful mechanics. Energy and resolution are 
stamped on these serious, rugged faces; on the powerful 
men, the tall, strong women, and even on the little black- 
eyed children. And they can do many worthy things 
well: they market the country's rich coal and iron de- 



PRAGUE 113 

posits, make garnets to perfection, and manufacture 
beet-sugar by thousands of tons. Who has not heard of 
Bohemian glass, or Pilsener beer? And shall we belittle 
the resourcefulness of Bohemia, with the prosperous re- 
sorts of Karlsbad and Marienbad well within the western 
boundary of the Bohmer Wald? If this does not con- 
vince, one has only to run over to Dresden, seventy-five 
miles away, which he can reach by rail in four hours at an 
outlay of but eight florins, and ask any one where the fin- 
est farm produce comes from and what section yields the 
best fruit and honey, butter and eggs, milk and cheese. 
If now we can manage to look away from the bridge 
and its crowds, we shall observe that the afternoon 
activities of the river-life of Prague are manifold and 
highly interesting. There is a prodigious bustling about 
of longshoremen on the fine, broad quays, and boats 
of many descriptions and diversified cargoes are la- 
boriously struggling upstream or drifting guardedly 
down. From time to time huge, unwieldy rafts pass 
along to the din of vigorous shouting and hysterical 
warnings. Bathers at the riverside establishments are 
adding their share of laughter and frolic, their diver- 
sions watched with vast amusement by the afternoon 
idlers loitering along the embankments. On our right 
the shaded walks and trim lawns of the popular Rudolf s- 
Quai are comfortably filled with a leisurely company 
of promenaders and of nursemaids airing their charges. 
All this contributes an agreeable note of homeliness 



114 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

and contentment and seems eminently in harmony 
with the prevailing serenity and peace of the surround- 
ing groves. There is at hand a little chain footbridge 
which they call the Kettensteg, and in a beautiful clump 
of lindens at its end rise the sculptured porticoes of the 
classic Rudolfinum, Prague's noble home of the arts 
and industries. Enter it, and you find whole halls de- 
voted to the work of Bohemian artists, with the school 
of old Theodoric of Prague represented in surprising 
completeness, an entire cabinet filled with the engrav- 
ings of that famous Praguer, Wenzel Hollar, and many 
of the most beautiful paintings of such celebrated Bo- 
hemians as Gabriel Max, Vaclav Brozik and Josef 
Manes. 

With artistic bridges arching the river in whichever 
direction you look, with music and soft voices welling 
up from the gay islands, and with a full and virile life 
at cry along the quays, you find yourself about as far 
removed as possible from the atmosphere of Longfel- 
low's "Beleaguered City": — 

"Beside the Moldau's rushing stream, 
With the wan moon overhead, 
There stood, as in an awful dream, 
The army of the Dead." 

Assuredly, there is no "army of the dead" at this hour 
beside the Moldau, whatever there may be under the 
"wan moon" in a poet's eye. On the contrary, there 
is an army of the living, a quarter-million of them, and 



PRAGUE 115 

it marches without resting, day in and day out, along the 
Graben and the stately Wenzels-Platz, and through the 
venerable Grosser Ring and the narrow, crooked alleys 
of old Josephstadt. 

Walk east across Karlsbrucke, pass under the Gothic 
arch of the somnolent Aldstadt Tower, with the stony 
statue of Karl IV on your left, and you will shortly 
emerge on the Grosser Ring and can settle the matter 
for yourself. This fantastic Ring is the oldest and most 
famous square of the city, still preserving its ancient 
appearance. You find it an irregular quadrilateral, 
surrounded by quaint, gloomy, colonnaded houses, 
churches, and dilapidated palaces. There towers in its 
centre a sombre memorial column, called the Marien- 
saule, commemorating Prague's liberation from the 
Swedes at the close of the Thirty Years' War. The very 
first thing to catch the eye is the singular Teynkirche — 
the old Gothic church where John Huss so often preached, 
where the astronomer Tycho Brahe lies entombed in red 
marble, and in whose shadows, through five centuries, 
many of the bloodiest events of the city had their in- 
ception and execution. The influence of Huss on the 
Europe of his day was so great and has continued so 
long that it is hard to realize that he had only reached 
his forty-sixth year when the Council of Constance sent 
him and his friend, Jerome of Prague, to the stake. 
The old Teynkirche, where he so often attacked the 
doctrines of Rome, still rears its battered and darkened 



116 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

bulk from behind a melancholy row of colonnaded 
houses and gazes solemnly and patiently over them at 
the noisy Ring, its lofty spires curiously clustered with 
airy turrets like hornets' nests on some old tree. Di- 
rectly opposite, the modern Gothic Rathaus shoulders 
up to the moldering tower of its predecessor whose 
famous clock has delighted its thousands with the sur- 
prising things the automatic figures do when the hours 
and quarters roll around. Just at hand, a portion of the 
old Erkerkapelle still stands in excellent preservation, 
and you could not find more beautiful Gothic windows 
in all Prague, nor finer canopied saints nor more richly 
sculptured coats of arms. Before this building — a place 
of hideous history — the best blood of the city was 
spilled after the fall of Bohemian independence at the 
fateful battle of the White Hill, three centuries ago, 
when twenty-seven nobles were butchered here on the 
scaffold. A dozen years passed, and again blood soaked 
this earth, with the stony-hearted Wallenstein exe- 
cuting eleven of his chief officers for alleged cowardice 
at the battle of Lutzen. Prague still shows the palace 
of Wallenstein, and those of the other two famous 
generals of his period, Gallas and Piccolomini. The 
Clam-Gallas Palace is just at hand, in the Hussgasse, 
distinguished for its beautiful portal flanked with colos- 
sal caryatids and sculptured urns, and surmounted by 
a marble balustrade wrought with the perfection of life. 
A final note in the Old-World charm of the Grosser 



PRAGUE 117 

Ring is contributed by the ancient Kinsky Palace, ad- 
joining the Teynkirche, in the elaborate baroque archi- 
tecture despised of Mr. Ruskin. People in the manner 
and seeming of to-day walk and talk, barter and sell 
under the nodding brows of these historic buildings, but 
the visitor stands among them unconscious of their 
noisy presence in the spell such storied surroundings 
cast on every phase of fancy and imagination. 

There is a peculiar fascination about aimless rambles 
in Prague. Modern improvements have come, of course, 
but many an old and rare landmark has been reverently 
preserved, with the result that you can scarcely turn 
a corner or cross a square without coming face to face 
with some fantastic and blackened architectural frag- 
ment that holds you spellbound with wonder and de- 
light. Whole sections, indeed, are of such a character; 
as you would find were you to fare forth from the Grosser 
Ring and seek adventures by crossing the Kettensteg 
and invading the region beyond the Rudolfinum. With 
almost the suddenness of tumbling into a river you 
would find yourself groping, even at this bright hour of 
the afternoon, in the black and twisting mazes of the old 
Jewish Ghetto that still goes by the name of Josephstadt. 
Here you have at once all the detail and color of a 
romance of the crusades. Everything appears aged and 
eccentric. The time-weary, saddened, ramshackle 
houses project their upper stories feebly and seek to rest 
their wrinkled foreheads on one another; tortuous, wind- 



118 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

ing alleys that you can almost span with your out- 
stretched arms reel giddily all ways from a straight line, 
plodding wearily uphill and sliding helplessly down. On 
all sides there seems to be a general feeling that nothing 
matters, that everything comes by accident or caprice. 
Over the frowzy heads of slovenly children quarreling 
in the doorways, glimpses are to be had of dark and filthy 
interiors, from which foul odors escape to the street. 
Long-coated, unkempt patriarchs of Israel lope solemnly 
by, with rounded shoulders and hands clasped behind; 
and if you follow in their wake you will sooner or later 
arrive at a curious, melancholy Rathaus that is a rare 
jumble of architectural orders and has an extraordinary 
steeple that might once have done time on a Chinese 
temple. This very inclusive structure, persisting in its 
oddities to the end, makes a great point of staring 
down at the gaping crowds out of a big belfry clock that 
has one dial Hebrew and one Christian. But a single 
marvel is as nothing in this old wonderland where, as 
Alice would have remarked, things become "curiouser 
and curiouser." If your eyes popped at the Rathaus 
what will they do at the gaunt, barnlike synagogue 
next door ! Here is the thing that every visitor to Prague 
goes straight to see. Its early history is lost in legends, 
but you will be disposed to credit them all — even to 
that one about the Prague Jews fleeing from Jerusalem 
to escape the persecutions of Titus — once you have 
seen its doleful walls and breakneck roof, and have 



PRAGUE 119 

passed through the narrow black doorway into that 
shadowy tomb of an interior. Brass lamps depend by 
long chains from the smoky ceiling, but they only in- 
tensify the gloom with their feeble light and deepen the 
feeling of creepy depression. Visitors are told that dur- 
ing the horrors of the Hussite wars this black hole was 
literally packed with the bloody corpses of Jews and that, 
in a bitter spirit of defiance, no attempt was made for 
three hundred years to efface the frightful stains. Little 
wonder that the Prague Jews evolved out of their hatred 
an ancient malediction that ran: "May your head be as 
thick as the walls of the Hradschin, your body grow as 
big as the city of Prague; may your limbs wither away to 
birds' claws, and may you flee around the world for a 
thousand years!" 

It is like escaping from a sick-bed to come out of this 
chamber of horrors and cross the street to the quiet and 
hush of the wonderful old Ghetto cemetery. Here we 
have another of the "sights" of the Josephstadt. In the 
refreshing coolness of its elder-trees one looks about on 
as extraordinary a three acres as can be found anywhere 
in all Europe. The Jews insist that they have buried 
here for twelve or fourteen hundred years, and inscrip- 
tions can be found that date back at least half that far. 
By the simple process of spreading new layers of earth, 
this plot has been packed with graves six deep; and all 
that was accomplished a hundred and fifty years ago, the 
cemetery not having been in use since the middle of the 



120 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

eighteenth century. The closeness of the black, mossy 
tombstones, and their toppled and huddled look, suggest 
the troubled shouldering of some gigantic, ghoulish 
mole at work deep down in the horror-crowded darkness 
underground. The ancient tribal insignia of Israel are 
found graven on these tottering slabs, — the Hands of 
Aaron, the Cup of Levi, the Double Triangle of David, 
the Stag, the Fish, etc., — and here and there you come 
across those little'piles of stones heaped on graves that 
mark a Jewish act of reverence for the resting-place of 
some long-buried ancestor. 

Hold to a generally southern direction in your after- 
noon stroll through the narrow Ghetto alleys, and 
shortly you will meet with a fine reward in the shape of 
a face-to-face contemplation of one of Prague's most 
cherished antiquities, the Pulverturm. They may have 
once stored powder here, as the name implies, or they 
may not; but almost anything looks to have been possi- 
ble to this sturdy, brown survivor of the Middle Ages, 
under whose broad Gothic archway the twentieth-cent- 
ury crowds are passing day and night. Set solidly 
down in the thickest stream of traffic, it has the look of 
those unconquerable obstructions that have to be tun- 
neled through. It looms above you, a great, dark, dusty 
mass, out-of-time in every particularity of design and 
decoration. Stubbornness and defiance are expressed in 
every line; and with its atmosphere of drowsy aloofness 
and mystery there is such an element of loneliness 



PRAGUE 121 

among such modern surroundings that one could almost 
believe he sometimes hears the old veteran sigh. Cer- 
tainly you would say it is brooding over memories cent- 
uries dead, so incongruous and distrait is its seeming, 
so anachronous are its whimsical turrets, fantastic roof, 
statues, arms, and sculptured traceries. This impression 
of isolation is enhanced as one reflects that the most 
ultra-modern of Prague's new buildings all stand within 
easy range, could one of the Pulverturm's ancient arch- 
ers take up a position in any of those lofty turrets and 
wing an arrow from his stout crossbow toward what 
quarter of the heavens he chose. 

When you have passed under the arch of the Pulver- 
turm, you have entered the Graben, and so reached the 
business heart of the city. The Graben has nothing to- 
day to suggest the "Ditch" that its derivative source 
implies, unless you fancifully regard it as a moat of the 
modern commercial ramparts. On the contrary, it pre- 
sents a busy array of all the leading hotels, shops, res- 
taurants, and cafes. Overhead-trolley cars splutter 
along it, and you see gray stone buildings of irregular 
roof -lines with skylight dormers in the tiles, and Vene- 
tian blinds in the windows, narrow sidewalks decorated 
in mosaic designs, and active throngs of strong-featured 
men, and bareheaded, vigorous women whose chief pride 
of dress concerns itself with capacious aprons elabor- 
ately embroidered. Were you to visit the second-story 
cafes, whose gay window-boxes look so inviting from the 



122 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

street, you would find games of chess and checkers in 
progress at this hour, and more than one merchant who 
had stolen from his shop to have a look at the "Prager 
Tagblatt" over a glass of Pilsener or "three fingers" of 
the plum brandy they call slivovitz or a dram of tshai — 
which is tea and rum — or a cup of tee — which is just 
plain tea and cream. Coffee and chocolate, of course, 
would be found in general demand. 

One passes out of the Graben into the fine boulevard 
of the Wenzelsplatz, and at once exchanges bustle and 
uproar for the quiet and dignity of the most beautiful 
and stately avenue of the city. It is broad and well- 
paved, with buildings of elaborate design, with shop 
fronts protected by bright awnings and with fine shade- 
trees every few yards along its entire length. At the 
corner of the Stadt Park, one finds a beautiful cascade 
fountain, and beside it a noble building which is the 
centre of all that is best and most intense in the new 
movement for the reviving and vitalizing of the national 
spirit among Bohemians — the new Bohemian Museum. 
Were you to enter it you would doubtless be astonished 
to see how many souvenirs of Bohemian history have 
already been assembled there, — autographs and docu- 
ments, ancient musical instruments, art objects, flails 
of the Hussites, and scientific collections. Such is the 
intellectual Bohemia of to-day. 

From this pleasant stroll one wends his way back to 
the Karlsbrucke, and as he passes the buildings that still 



PRAGUE 123 

remain of the ancient famous university, thoughts are 
kindled of the wonderful renown this institution had, 
six centuries ago, when it was easily the foremost educa- 
tional institution of the world. Fifteen thousand stud- 
ents, from every quarter of the earth, gathered to hear 
its celebrated savants, and the revels and achievements 
of those days have gone down in prose and rhyme. Five 
thousand students still attend, two thirds of them 
Czechs and the others German; but the revelry of to- 
day is largely the bitter and bruising encounters that are 
continually arising between these conflicting hot-heads. 
The intellectual impulse is strong in Prague. It has poly- 
technic institutes, art schools, and learned societies, 
and one of the most famous conservatories of music in 
the whole of Europe. 

The west bank of the Moldau, the Kleinseite district, 
was royalty's region in the olden time when Bohemian 
kings and queens dwelt in the huge Hradschin on the 
ridge of the hill. Seen from the Karlsbriicke, toward 
five o'clock, the long slope rises toward the declining 
sun with many more suggestions, even now, of the pomp 
and circumstance that have departed than of the mod- 
ernism that has taken their place. There is a dreary 
and saddening array of closed and boarded palaces, ar- 
caded and many-windowed, whose owners are rich and 
powerful Bohemian nobles with a preference for the 
gayeties and frivolities of the court life of Vienna. One 
regards with especial interest the long, rambling one of 



124 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Wallenstein, to make room for which one hundred houses 
had to be torn down, where this rival of royalty retired 
in the interval of imperial disfavor and held magnificent 
court with hundreds of followers and attendants. Among 
the many chambers of that great honeycomb was one 
equipped as an astrological cabinet — for Wallenstein 
always had faith in his star. How vividly it recalls the 
Schiller dramas and the operations of the uncanny 
Ceni! "Such a man!" exclaims a character at the con- 
clusion of "Wallensteins Tod." Born a Protestant, he 
well-nigh became their exterminator; turned Jesuit, the 
Jesuits distrusted and hated him. With his sword he 
made and unmade kings and carved out principalities 
for himself — and yet he was but fifty-one years old at 
the time of his assassination ! 

Like an aged soldier nodding in his armchair in the 
sun, the Wallenstein Palace, once passion-rocked and 
treachery -haunted, basks this afternoon in an atmosphere 
of the intensest calm and peace. To ramble through it 
is to learn history from a participant. One courtyard, 
in particular, is so serene and lovely as to be really un- 
forgettable. One entire side of this enclosure is a lofty, 
echoing loggia three stories high, with arching spans for 
a roof supported on graceful, towering columns. Within 
the loggia are heavy sculptured balustrades, and a broad 
flight of marble steps flanked by huge stone urns leads 
to a beautiful open space of soft lawns bordered with 
simple flowers. It was a favorite resort of Wallenstein's, 



PRAGUE 125 

and he called it his sala terrina. In its present mellow 
and half-deserted beauty it is a place for a poet to dream 
away a life in. 

Staring gloomily down on the Kleinseite, and set 
solidly far above it on a precipitous hill, the rugged old 
Hradschin, Prague's acropolis, warms into mild ruddy 
tones in the afternoon sun. I have said it reminds one 
of a barracks, such an enormous, rambling affair as it is; 
though its commanding situation and impressive pro- 
portions would immediately suggest to a stranger some 
more consequential employment in other days. Un- 
doubtedly it is the most striking feature of Prague. 
One might think it a solid architectural mass, as seen 
from the Karlsbriicke, but on closer inspection it resolves 
itself into a series of separate structures falling into 
irregular groups, but which, taken together, composed 
the setting of the imperial court during the long period 
of Bohemia's independence. That splendid fragment, 
the vast cathedral of St. Vitus, supplies a worthy cen- 
trepiece; and is full of interest, too, with its rich Gothic 
windows, chapel walls set with precious stones, marble 
tombs of the Bohemian kings, and the wonderful silver 
monument to St. John Nepomuc. Indeed, the whole 
Hradschin abounds in rich surprises. Such, for instance, 
is the venerable church of St. George, awkward and 
archaic, which has stood for nine hundred years and is 
the sole memorial in Bohemia of the earliest period of 
Romanic architecture. Every one, of course, hurries 



126 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

to see the rude royal palace of the Hofburg, on the edge 
of an adjacent steep hill, from the windows of whose 
Kanzlei Zimmer the Imperial Councillors were "defen- 
estrated" and the Thirty Years' War, in consequence, 
precipitated upon the troubled states of Europe. And 
then there is the archbishop's palace, across the quad- 
rangle from the Hofburg, in whose courtyard the church 
authorities impotently burned the two hundred Wycliffe 
books that John Huss had loaned them with the chal- 
lenge to read and, if they could, refute. Two grim towers 
on the eastern extremity, the Daliborka and the Black 
Tower, have no end of creepy legends of tortures and 
prison horrors. The former takes its name from a roman- 
tic knight, Dalibor, who is said to have been long con- 
fined there and of whom and his solacing violin we hear 
at pleasant length in Smetana's opera of that name. One 
of the most curious sights of the Hradschin is the low, 
drawn-out Loretto church, with a maximum of frontage 
and a minimum of depth, like city seminaries for young 
ladies. Among the red tiles of its steep roof, giant stone 
saints perform miracles of precarious footing, and out 
of the centre of the fagade, on a base of colossal spirals, 
rises an antique belfry spire set with domes and turrets 
and bearing aloft a huge clock dial like a burnished 
shield. Surely, somewhere in this Hradschin-wonderland 
occurred the unrecounted events of that much-inter- 
rupted narrative of the "King of Bohemia and his 
Seven Castles," which Trim tried so hard to tell to 



PRAGUE 127 

Uncle Toby Shandy; and may we not be confident that 
the charming Prince Florizel, whose strange adventures 
Stevenson has so gracefully recounted, once lived and 
courted perils in these romantic surroundings! 

It is to be hoped that every visitor will have more 
than one hour in Prague; and then, of course, he will 
want to go up to the Hradschin and loiter through and 
about it at his leisure. He will find large and beautiful 
gardens where he can rest under noble trees and enjoy an 
inspiring view of the city in the pleasant companion- 
ship of statuary and fountains. When he has exhausted 
this viewpoint he can secure quite another from the col- 
onnaded verandas of the Renaissance Belvedere; or, 
perhaps better still, he will journey out to the picturesque 
Abbey of Strahow, embowered in blooming orchards 
that are vocal with blackbirds, and from its yellow stuc- 
coed walls look down on the dense forests of the Laurenz- 
berg sweeping in billowy green to the very banks of the 
Moldau. 

At this hour a sharp point of light, seen from the 
observation tower on the summit of the Hasenberg, 
marks the location of a little white church on a distant 
hilltop — and when you have been told all about what 
happened there at the fatal battle of the White Hill you 
will have listened to the bitterest chapter in the whole 
history of Bohemia and will know how the national life 
of this kingdom gasped itself out, three centuries ago, 
in the panic and rout of the " Winter King's " ill-managed 



128 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

soldiery before the fierce infantry of Bavaria. There fell 
the state won by the flails of a fanatical peasantry whose 
sonorous war-hymn, "Ye Who Are God's Warriors," 
had so often struck terror into the ranks of the finest 
armies of Europe. Those were the men whom the furi- 
ous Ziska led — Ziska, the squat and one-eyed, the 
friend and avenger of Huss; "John Ziska of the Chalice, 
Commander in the Hope of God of the Taborites." 
Such was the terror in which this dread chieftain was 
held by his foes that they feared him even after his death 
and declared that his skin had been stretched for drum- 
heads to summon his followers on to victory. 

Since the battle of the White Hill there has been little 
for Prague in the way of war except sieges and captures ; 
and it has mattered little to her whether it was Maria 
Theresa come to be crowned, or Frederick the Great 
come to destroy, or the Swedes of Gustavus Adolphus 
come to plague and offend. Suffering has been her reg- 
ular portion. During the Thirty Years' War alone, Bo- 
hemia's population declined from four millions to fewer 
than seven hundred thousand. 

The stranger on the Karlsbriicke will turn from 
thoughts of Ziska's peasants to regard with increased 
interest the occasional specimen of the countryman who 
strides past along the bridge with no embarrassment at 
appearing in the streets of his capital in the costume of his 
nation. Behold him in his high boots, tight buff trousers, 
well-embroidered, blue bolero jacket with many but- 



PRAGUE 129 

tons, broad lapels and embroidered cuffs, his soft shirt 
puffed out like a pigeon, and the jaunty Astrachan cap 
cocked to one side. And there, too, marches his wife; 
boots laced high, bodice bright and abbreviated, petti- 
coats short and broad and covered by a wide-bordered 
apron, her arms bare to the shoulders, and her headdress 
of white linen very starchy and stiff. Sometimes one 
passes wearing a hat that suggests Spain, but he, too, as 
they all do, wears the tight trousers and the close-fitting 
knee boots. In time one learns to distinguish the Slovaks 
and Moravians by their long, sleeveless white coats, 
tight blue trousers, and white jackets with lapels and 
cuffs embroidered in red. 

One hears many interesting things about these peas- 
ants. Throughout the year, it is said, they fare frugally 
on black bread and a cheese made of sheeps' milk, to 
which is added an occasional trout from the mountain 
streams. The great age some of them attain speaks 
well for the diet. Strangers who go up into the hills to 
stalk chamois and have a go at the big game come back 
with surprising stories of the inherited deference that is 
still paid in the country to caste. They will tell you that 
the peasant still kisses the hand of the lord of the soil. 
The Praguer thinks highly of his country brother, though 
he finds a vast amusement in observing his rustic antics 
when he comes to town on St. John Nepomuc's Day and 
shuffles about the streets, wide-eyed and gaping, after 
the manner of rus in urbe the world over. 



130 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Curious stories are told of peasant customs. Christ- 
mas is their day of days, and preparations for its proper 
observance are made long in advance. They believe it 
to be a season when evil spirits are powerless to injure 
and may even be made to aid. When the great day ar- 
rives, the cottages are scrupulously cleaned, fresh straw 
laid on the earthen floor, and the entire household as- 
sembled for a processional round of the outbuildings. In 
the course of this ceremonial parade, beans are carefully 
dropped into cracks and chinks of the buildings, with 
elaborate incantations for protection against fires. 
Bread and salt are offered to every animal on the place. 
The unmarried daughters are sprinkled with honey- 
water to insure them faithful and sweet-natured hus- 
bands. The family drink of celebration is the plum-dis- 
tilled slivovitz. 

What effective use the great national composers of 
Bohemia — Smetana, Dvorak, and Fibich — have made 
of the native melodies and costumes ! Smetana, a friend 
and protege of Liszt, — the master utilizer of Hungarian 
folk-themes, — was determined that Bohemia, too, 
should have music of a distinctively national character; 
and in his eight operas and six symphonic poems, as well 
as in his beautiful stringed quartette, the "Carnival of 
Prague," he abundantly realized his ambition. There is 
no more popular opera played in Prague to-day than his 
"Bartered Bride." One hears a great deal of Smetana 
in talking with the people of this city; of his poverty and 



PRAGUE 131 

sadness, his final deafness, and of how, when fame at last 
crowned him so completely, he was dying in an asylum 
here. Music is a favorite topic of conversation in Prague. 
A violin player in one of the local theatre orchestras was 
no less a person than the great Dvorak, a pupil of Smet- 
ana's; and he, too, added to Bohemian musical glory 
with his Slavonic rhapsodies and dances and the splen- 
did overture that he constructed on the folk-melody 
"Kde Domov Muj." There was a sort of Bach-like 
foundation for all these composers in the early litanies 
of the talented Bishop of Prague. The Czech tempera- 
ment finds its natural expression in music. It is even 
insisted that their most popular movement, the polka, 
was invented by a Bohemian servant girl. 

Certainly there has been no lack of beautiful legendary 
material on which to construct effective compositions. 
These traditional stories are all full of sadness and super- 
stition, and they always revolve about simple, natural 
elements — the rain, the mountains, the valleys, ghosts, 
and wild hunters, and, above all, that most recurrent 
and universal of themes, love. 

Could we win favor with some old Praguer this after- 
noon and entice him into the sunny corner of Karl IV's 
monument place, beside the bridge, we should close out 
our hour with many a captivating and romantic story 
that would alone have made our visit well worth while. 
Such, for example, is the legend of the "Spinning Girl." 
Deserted by her lover, she wove a wonderful shroud 



132 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

threaded with moonbeams, and in this she was buried, 
and by its magic she appeared to him on his wedding 
night and lured him to leap to his death in the river. And 
there is the story of the "Wedding Shirt": A girl im- 
plores the Virgin either to let her die or restore her ab- 
sent lover who, unknown to her, has been dead some 
time. The Virgin bows from the holy picture, and forth- 
with the pallid lover appears and conducts his sweetheart 
by a midnight journey to the spot where his body lies 
buried. Thereupon ensues a desperate struggle by fiends 
and ghouls to capture the soul of the girl, who is finally 
rescued by the interposition of the Virgin to whom in her 
terror she appeals. The wedding shirts that she had 
brought as her bridal portion are found scattered in 
fragments by the sinister spirits on the surrounding 
graves. The flight of the maid and her ghostly lover is 
vividly depicted at length, and is expressed, in transla- 
tion, by such lurid lines as — 

"O'er the marshes the corpse-lights shone, 
Ghastly blue they glimmered alone." 

One of the most romantic of these legends is the 
"Golden Spinning-Wheel." A king loses his way while 
hunting and stops for a drink at a peasant's cottage. 
There he finds a marvelously beautiful girl, to whom he 
eagerly offers himself in marriage. This girl is an orphan, 
with a stepmother and stepsister who are cruel and 
jealous. Under pretense of accompanying her to the 



PRAGUE 133 

king's castle they lure her into a black forest and slay 
her, taking great pains to conceal her identity by remov- 
ing and carrying with them her eyes, hands, and feet. 
They then proceed to the castle and the wicked daughter 
successfully impersonates the good one, whom she closely 
resembles. Seven days of wedding festivities ensue, at 
the end of which the king is called away to the wars. 
In the mean while a mysterious hermit — a heavenly 
messenger in disguise — takes up the dead body in the 
forest, dispatches his lad to the castle and secures the 
eyes, hands, and feet by bartering for them a golden 
spinning-wheel, a golden distaff, and a magic whirl. 
Thus equipped, he miraculously restores the girl to life 
and limb. When the king returns from the wars he 
invites his false bride to spin for him with her new golden 
wheel, and forthwith the magic instrument sings aloud 
the whole miserable story. The furious king rushes to 
the forest, finds his real sweetheart, and installs her in 
his castle, while the murderers are mutilated as she had 
been, and cast to the wild wolves. 

It may be thought that I have gone somewhat out 
of my allotted way in taking such notice as I have of 
the superstitions, customs, and music passion of the 
Bohemians, but I cannot believe that a satisfactory idea 
of Prague can be had in this, or any other hour, without 
some conception of the fundamental traits that so power- 
fully sway this people. For the real significance of the 
city lies deeper than its surface-showing of wooded 



134 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

hillsides sown with quaint buildings and a broad blue 
river rushing under many bridges; it is its peculiar 
raciness of the soil that underlies the Czech's mad de- 
votion to his capital. Expressing, as only Prague does, so 
much that is dear and beautiful to him, it centres in 
itself the most burning and passionate interests of the 
race. Without some knowledge of this desperate attach- 
ment one would fail utterly to grasp the force and 
truth of such a fine observation as Mr. Arthur Symons 
has made on the devotion of the Bohemian to this city: 
"He sees it, as a man sees the woman he loves, with her 
first beauty; and he loves it, as a man loves a woman, 
more for what she has suffered." 



SCHEVENINGEN 



5 P.M. TO 6 P.M. 




SCHEVENINGEN 

5 P.M. TO 6 P.M. 

Nurtured in the salt sadness of the sea, Scheveningen 
is a Whistler nocturne. Its prevailing and distinctive 
tones are neutral and elusive. There are, of course, 
days when the sun is as clear and powerful here as 
elsewhere, but more often it is obscured; then the sky 
becomes pearly, the sea opalescent, the shore drab 
and dun. Presently a thin fog drifts in, or vapors steal 
over the trees from the inland marshes, and all tints are 
rapidly neutralized into a common dimness of that 
vague and sentimental mistland so dear to the heart 
of the painter. This is the characteristic suspended 
color note of the average day at Scheveningen. It har- 
monizes to perfection with the sentiment of the en- 
vironment and invests the region with a marvelous 
charm — peculiar, distinctive, and of the finest dignity. 
The power of Scheveningen's attraction, the force 
of its appeal, lies largely in its grim aloofness and self- 
sufficiency. It is unsympathetic, discouraging. It con- 
sistently dominates its visitors, and, indeed, with an 
easy insolence and indifference. Wealth and fashion 
may abide with it for a few days, under tolerance, but 



138 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

the impression of the temporary and migratory char- 
acter of their sojourn is always present. Undistr acted, 
the fierce and gaunt sea assails the stark and surly 
shore, and the grim fishermen stand by and have their 
toll of both. Of the presence of the strangers they are 
all but unaware. In a brief day the incongruous in- 
vaders will have gone, but this relentless warfare will 
continue unabated. All the way from Helder to the 
Hook glistening seas will hiss over the flat beaches, 
snarling and biting at the shoulders of the dunes. All 
through the long, bitter winter, without an instant's 
intermission, the struggle will go on. It is, consequently, 
of the very heart of the charm of the place that one has 
the feeling of intruding on battle; of tolerated propin- 
quity to Titanic contenders. 

Loafing at Scheveningen is the apotheosis of idle- 
ness. The strong wind stimulates, the broad beaches 
delight, the solemn sea inspires. To this must be added 
the sense of strong contrasts. It emphasizes the impres- 
sion of having dropped, for a time, out of the familiar 
monotony of Life's treadmill; of being away from home; 
of both resting and recreating. It is present to the eyes 
in the eloquent disproportion between the vast Kur- 
haus and the diminutive homes of the villagers; in the 
incongruity of Parisian finery invading the savage haunts 
of the gull and the curlew. In the novel and bizarre 
activities of the fisher-folk, as in their theatrical sur- 
roundings as well, one finds just the right touch of the 



SCHEVENINGEN 139 

picturesque and the unfamiliar to complete the full 
realization of dolce far niente. 

Of the fabled monsters of the wild North Sea the 
imaginative man will believe he sees one certain survivor 
in that languid sea-serpent of a pier — the " Jetee 
Konigin Wilhelmina" — that stretches its delicate 
length a quarter mile over the waves from off the drab 
sand dunes of Scheveningen. Its pavilion-crowned 
head snuggles flatly on the water. In the afternoon and 
evening, when its orchestra is playing, one fancies the 
monster is actually singing. At five o'clock, precisely, 
we have its last drowsy utterance as it drops off into a 
three-hours' nap — quite as Fafner, in the opera, yawns 
at Alberich and mutters " lasst mich schlafen ! " It must 
be admitted it is a highly pleasing song he sings, — a 
Waldteufel waltz, more than likely, — and we come 
in time to recognize in it the closing number of the 
matinee musicale. And then, like Jonah's captor, he 
wearies of his living contents ; and we see them emerge 
by hundreds, scathless and unafraid, gay with parasols 
and immaculate of raiment, and pick their way lei- 
surely along his back until they have rejoined their 
friends in the voluble company that crowds the cafes of 
the Kurhaus. In a moment more the abandoned mon- 
ster is fast asleep; which, by a familiar association of 
ideas, is a sign to the multitudes on the beaches that 
surf-bathing ends in just one hour. 

Forthwith, there is a great bustling all along the 



140 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

shore side of the broad boulevard they call the "Stand- 
weg." Bathers pick themselves up regretfully from sun- 
baths in the soft, powdery sand and trot down for a final 
dip in the surf, and those already in hasten to convert 
pleasure into work with increased energy and enthusiasm. 
To all such the implacable watchman shall come within 
the hour and beckon them out with stern and remorse- 
less gestures, and the curious little wagons they call 
bath-cars will engulf each in turn and trundle them up 
out of the water, while the nervous old women who look 
after the bathing-suits will hover about with anxious 
eyes and lay violent hands on the dripping and dis- 
carded garments. 

And now a tremendous clamor arises from all the 
little Holland children, who, from early morning, have 
been indulging the national instinct for dike-building 
and surrounding their mothers' beach-chairs with sci- 
entific sand-bulwarks against the imaginary encroach- 
ments of the sea. For lo! their nurses approach, won- 
derful in white streamers and golden head -ornaments, 
and visions of the odious ante-prandial toilet rise like 
North Sea fogs in every youngster's eye until even 
dinner itself appears abhorrent. Vagabond jugglers 
run through their final tricks, fold their carpets and 
steal away. Itinerant peddlers redouble their efforts 
and retire disgusted or jubilant as Fortune may have 
hidden or shown her face. More than ever does the 
sea front take on the appearance of a long apiary, with 









SCHEVENINGEN BEACH 



SCHEVENINGEN 141 

the hundreds of tall, shrouded beehives of beach-chairs 
emptying themselves of their comfortable occupants 
and being bundled by bee-men in white linen to safety 
for the night. And of all the odd sights of Scheveningen 
certainly no other will remain longer in mind than this 
curious, huddled colony of beach-chairs. What a pleas- 
ing and cheerful spectacle! Thronging the shore for 
quite a mile they contribute to the local picture de- 
cidedly its most jolly and fantastic feature. Between 
the beach-chairs and the boulevard there is a picket line 
of prim little peaked white tents, with the top of each 
precisely matching all the others in an edging of stiff, 
woodeny scallops; now that the flaps are thrown back 
and the sides rolled up, we see tables and chairs inside, 
with evidence of recent and jovial occupancy. 

To the eye of a man taking his comfort at the pretty 
little Cafe de la Plage on the Kurhaus terrace, all this 
bustle and late afternoon animation is bound to prove 
decidedly diverting. The broad, paved plazas that lie 
like carpets between him and the dunes are steadily 
filling with a considerable proportion of the thirty 
thousand Hollanders and Germans who summer here, 
and acquaintances are exchanging civilities and joining 
and taking leave of little groups in a way to make the 
general picture a brilliant, restless, and bewildering 
interweaving of color. As the open-air tables are fill- 
ing, the activity of the waiters approaches hysteria, and 
the verandas and saloons of the ponderous Kurhaus 



142 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

begin to hum with the advent of the evening guests. 
Copies of "Le Courrier de Scheveningue " pass from hand 
to hand as the curious scan the lists of the latest arriv- 
als or look over the various musical programmes of the 
evening. Out on the terraces, the ornate little news- 
paper kiosks attract groups of loiterers and gradually 
take on the character of social centres, and as these com- 
panies increase, one thinks of stock exchanges and the 
rallying about the trading standards. The matinee at the 
Seinpost concludes and out troops its audience to swell 
the human high tide. Bright bits of color are afforded 
by the blue uniforms and yellow facings of Holland 
infantrymen dotted here and there in the press. It is 
odd to see the usually arid and monotonous dunes grow 
brilliant with an artificial blossoming of fashionable 
millinery, where by nature there is nothing better than 
a scraggy growth of stringy heather, a little rosemary 
and broom, or the dry stem of the "miller." 

It is at this hour, when "the quiet-coloured end of 
evening smiles," that the stolid natives array them- 
selves and sally forth, like Delft tiles come to life, to the 
amused amazement of the visitors. Your Schevenin- 
gen man is wont to go about his duties, during the day, 
flopping vigorously in vivid red knickerbockers, volumin- 
ous as sails and quite as crudely patched ; but when he 
makes a point of toilet he appears in gray homespun, 
the knickerbockers cut from the same pattern as the 
red ones, but there is a jacket closed up to the chin with 



SCHEVENINGEN 143 

two rows of large buttons, a red handkerchief twisted 
about the neck, a small cap with a glazed peak, and, of 
course, the wooden klompen. Such a display richly de- 
serves attention, but what can the poor man expect when 
his wife appears in her full regalia ! She, too, is shod with 
klompen, — though you have to take that on faith in 
view of the dozen or two of petticoats that balloon 
above them, — and her waist is a gay butterfly of 
variegated embroidery, while her headgear is about the 
most incredible thing conceivable. You might, at a 
distance, mistake them for bishops with their mitres 
tilted back at a rakish angle. Nor is it always of the 
one pattern. Usually it is a sort of long white cap of 
linen, embroidered at the edges; and the wearer adds a 
touch of coquetry in the shape of a long curl hanging at 
either side. But not infrequently you see a formidable 
contrivance of vastly more consequence; it consists, 
first, of a skullcap of polished gold or silver, technically 
known as a hoofdijzer, pierced at the top for ventila- 
tion and cut to leave room for the exposure of the fore- 
head, and over this is drawn an elaborate cape of lace, 
with gold ornaments of spirals and squares dangling 
over the ears. This triumph of millinery never fails to 
elicit cries of delight from feminine visitors, or to set 
mere man to chuckling. It is most likely to form a part 
of the impressive gear of the nurses from the provinces, 
who have more money for such uses than the wives of 
the fishermen; and the things that are told to new- 



144 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

comers as to the significance of this or that ornament 
is the boldest advantage ever taken of innocent credul- 
ity. They undertook to tell me that you could distin- 
guish between married, single, and engaged women by 
glancing at the ornaments — I wonder if you can! It 
is said that parents present their daughters with this 
headdress on the day of their confirmation; and that it 
is a fine sight to behold the array of them at kermess- 
time with their wearers, six or eight abreast, arm in 
arm, rushing down the streets in the odd dances peculiar 
to those festivals, droning monotonous tunes. 

To my way of thinking the unflagging industry of 
the Scheveningen women is a matter of quite as much 
note. One seldom sees them without their knitting, 
even when they are recreating, and as they stroll along, 
laughing and chatting together, their fingers, all un- 
noticed by them, are flashing with extraordinary speed 
like things of an independent volition. Many of the 
women wear no sleeves and take great pride in their 
strong, round arms; and this, I am told, is the case even 
in winter when they are cracked and purple from ex- 
posure to the cold. 

The faces of the elder fisher-folk are studies in wrinkles. 
Their eyes are brave and quizzical, but with a certain 
settled hardness, not perhaps to be unlooked-for in men 
and women who come of a stock that for five hundred 
years has forced even the savage North Sea to yield 
them a livelihood. They show next to nothing of hu- 



SCHEVENINGEN 145 

mor, but rather a stern and weary hopelessness. Strong 
faces are these, hard, weather-beaten faces, but elo- 
quent of tenacity and desperate courage. They have 
been called "the most poetic and original of all Hol- 
landers." They are grave, dignified, and self-reliant; 
and as they pass you by they show their invariable 
courtesy in a bow and a quiet "Goe 'n Dag." One has 
only to see them to feel the propriety and justification 
of the boast in their national song: — 

"Wilhelmus van Nassouwe, 
Ben ick van Duijtschen Bloedt!" 

Fishermen naturally suggest ships, and if you glance 
down the beach you will usually see several of them 
drawn up to the edge of the water, with the red, white, 
and blue of Holland at the masthead. During the mid- 
summer season the fishing-fleet is away on the cruise for 
red herring off the coasts of Scotland, but there are 
always a few that could not get away, and so we have 
the famous Scheveningen bom on its native strand. 
How the artists have delighted in these lumbering, flat- 
bottomed tubs, ponderous of mast and weathered of 
sail! Mesdag, Maris, Alfred Stevens, and the rest have 
familiarized the world with this fantastic and pictur- 
esque craft. Who would buy a painting of Schevenin- 
gen unless it showed a bom or two hauled up on the 
beach? And that is precisely the raison d' etre of the 
bom — it can be hauled up on the beach. Otherwise, 



146 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

what should a Scheveningen fisherman do with a boat, 
having no deep-water harbor at hand nor anchorage 
facility? There have, through the centuries, been many 
other styles of Dutch fishing-boats, — busses, loggers, 
hookers, sloops, pinken, etc., — and at times, when the 
forehanded Hollanders have made away with the lion's 
share of the foreign catch, outsiders have lost patience 
and classed them all as "Dutch toads"; but there have 
been no boms but Scheveningen boms. Nowadays they 
have had to build them larger and they do not beach 
so easily, and it is probably only a matter of time when 
steam vessels will supplant them altogether; but when 
that evil hour strikes the chiefest picturesque glory of 
this little village will have forever departed. 

There used to be vast excitement, in the old days, 
over the first herring catch of the season, and it was 
always hurried ashore and conveyed to the king's table 
with no end of flourish and punctilio. Over at Vlaar- 
dingen they used to post a watchman on the church 
tower, and when he made out the first boat coming in 
he would hoist a blue flag and all the people trooped 
joyfully down to the wharves shouting a song called 
"De Nieuwe Haring." Scheveningen, indeed, still 
presents one of its most picturesque scenes when the 
returning fishermen arrive and their catch is auctioned 
off, down the beach near the lighthouse, with much more 
of gusto and excitement than you would imagine these 
phlegmatic people could muster. The shrewd Schevenin- 



SCHEVENINGEN 147 

gen fishermen have learned how to eke out the bare 
three hundred florins they realize from a year's fishing 
by turning new tricks in the way of rope-spinning, sail- 
making, ship-building, and curing and smoking the 
herring. The fish go into this latter process as "steur 
haring" and emerge as "bokking" — if that means any- 
thing to anybody ! 

The long-beaked curlew that flashes overhead with 
hoarse, raucous news of the sea looks down at this hour 
on pleasant and curious sights as he wings his swift circle 
above the Scheveningen neighborhood. The placid vil- 
lage of twisted alleys, of innumerable "Tabak te Koop" 
signs, of queer little gabled houses and unpainted fisher- 
men's huts, has emptied its good folk into its narrow 
main street which, fickle of name, starts out as Keizer- 
Straat, almost immediately becomes Willem-Straat, 
and within a moment is the Oud-Weg. Here one sees 
in actual life the fascinating things he has marveled 
over in the canvases of Teniers, Jan Steen, and Gerard 
Dou, — good Dutch vrows supper-marketing. There 
they go, ballooning along, bargaining and bustling from 
shop to shop, storing capacious hampers with game and 
cheeses, and every grim line in their faces shouts a 
challenge to the shopmen to best them by so much as 
a stuiver if they can. From time to time, quaint little 
children like sturdy Dutch toys escape from the press 
and clatter off home, with an air of vast responsibility, 
hugging in both arms a brown loaf of bread a yard long. 



148 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

How it recalls the bright pages of "Hans Brinker"; and 
as you catch a glimpse of the broad canal down the 
street it is natural enough to speculate upon the pro- 
bability of Gretel's winning another pair of silver skates 
before you get back to Scheveningen next summer. 

In the meadows back of the village women in blue 
shawls are drying and mending fishing-nets, nor do they 
so much as raise their heads as the yellow, double-decked 
tramway car rumbles past on its trip to The Hague. 
If all seats are occupied the car will display a large sign 
marked "Vol," and rattle along oblivious to appeals 
from any and all who ask to get on. It is but three 
scant miles to the beautiful capital of Holland and the 
tramway makes it in ten minutes — a notable conces- 
sion by leisurely Holland to the time-saving spirit of the 
age, in view of other days when they devoted a half- 
hour to making the same journey by canal barge. The 
broad, smooth highway that the yellow car follows is, 
as every one knows, one of the favorite roads of Europe. 
As the curlew looks down, between five and six o'clock 
of any bright summer afternoon, he is sure to find it 
thronged with handsome equipages and to see gay com- 
panies in each little wayside inn that peeps out from the 
deep shade of the noble trees. The desired touch of the 
foreign and unusual is supplied to the visitor in the scores 
of heavy carts drawn by frisking, barking dogs; in the 
ever-present windmills beating the air with long, awk- 
ward arms; and in dozens of storks that cock their wise 



SCHEVENINGEN 149 

heads over the edges of their nests and regard the passing 
show with philosophic amusement, patient as the old 
apple- women of Amsterdam. 

The Scheveningen Bosch is one of the most delight- 
ful woods imaginable. It is national property, and no 
private park could be more beautifully kept up. A ball 
would roll with perfect smoothness down its driveways 
of crushed gravel, and even Ireland would be taxed to 
equal the vivid greenness of its lawns. This whole fair 
forest is studded with villas of the aristocracy and even 
of royalty. Their wide verandas and orchards and 
flowery lawns move the most contented to envy a Hol- 
lander the comfort he takes in his zomerhuis. To know 
the Bosch rightly it must be walked through ; and the more 
leisurely and the oftener, the better. It is not only a 
lovely woodland set with charming homes, but every- 
thing a fine forest should be. The green and coppery 
beeches, the hardy oaks and elms, and the living em- 
broidery of bright flowers perfume the air with delicate 
odors; and the wind in the lofty tops makes sweet and 
haunting music. Deep down in the clear mirror of the 
canals, splotches of broad leaf shadows lazily float and 
dapple like drowsy fishes. Through the deep foliage 
you catch occasional glimpses of open, sunny meadows, 
with cows contentedly grazing; and you come to revel 
in every vague and tranquil sensation. 

In the midst of this beautiful forest, two centuries 
and a half ago, the best-beloved and most widely read of 



150 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Holland's poets — the venerable Jacob Cats — com- 
posed his madrigals and moral fables, and so passed the 
last eight years of his eventful career. Rembrandt loved 
and painted him, and a monument stands to his memory 
in his native town of Brouwershaven. They say his books 
are in every peasants' hut and his verses in every peas- 
ant's heart. His cottage was at Zorgvliet, a few steps 
from Scheveningen, near where the Queen Mother now 
has her summer home, and there in the garden of the 
Cafe de la Promenade they will show you the old stone 
table at which he wrote, with the hole he cut in it for his 
inkstand. 

Wild game throng the wooded inner dunes. Partridges, 
hares, and rabbits abound in the underbrush, and the 
polder meadows yield the finest grade of mallard ducks. 
The pines and firs are resonant with the calls of cuckoos, 
pheasants, and nightingales. Farmers clear patches of 
ground to serve as finch flats, which they call vinhie 
baans; and there, in the autumn, they snare chaffinches 
which they sell for a cent apiece, to be used as a garnish- 
ment in serving other game. 

As you look out across the Scheveningen dunes and 
watch the day declining, stirring thoughts come troop- 
ing to mind of the gallant scenes these bleak shores have 
witnessed. Off yonder, two centuries and a half ago, 
fell the brave Tromp, hero of thirty-three sea fights. 
On the bridge of his lofty-sterned Brederode he died, as 
every true warrior longs to die, in the foremost thick of 



SCHEVENINGEN 151 

the fray. "I am done; but keep up a good heart," were 
his last words as they carried him into his cabin. Next 
day they brought his body to these shores and bore it 
away to lie in the old gray church at Delft beside the 
revered William the Silent. "The bravest are the ten- 
derest," and his war-hardened sailors were not ashamed 
to weep as heartily for him as the little children, fifty 
years before, had wept in the streets for the great William. 
Half a dozen years later a shouting multitude thronged 
this beach and waved a bon voyage to Charles II of Eng- 
land as he sailed homeward to his recovered throne, to 
restore a licentious court and renew such royal revels 
as had already cost England a revolution. Another 
dozen years roll around, and Scheveningen looks on 
while the fleets of France and England are battered to 
wreckage by the cannon of Holland's pet hero, the in- 
trepid De Ruyter. A century or so more, and once again 
this village is the storm centre of Holland's hopes and 
fears as William Frederick I eludes the pursuing French 
troops and a little Scheveningen fishing-smack bears the 
whole royal family away in safety to Germany. And 
when he came back in triumph, twenty years later, it 
was at Scheveningen that he landed, and at the very 
spot where yonder gray obelisk now stands in com- 
memoration. 

And now through chilly mists the sun, a vast bloated 
orange, settles down into the glowing wastes of the de- 
solate North Sea. The roaring surf spreads glittering 



152 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

carpets far up the beach. It has suddenly become a 
region of placid power and glory, something quite other 
than the fabled home of monsters and terrors, of temp- 
est and shipwreck. That vessel in the offing, with the 
black hull and the crimson sails, may be the very Flying 
Dutchman's own; but still you would like to be on it 
and so much nearer the sinking sun. The sky is astound- 
ing; like a glorified Holland ! There you see cloud-islands 
more wonderful than Walcheren; gray wastes that 
beggar the Zuyder Zee; sky dunes that stretch beyond 
Helder or the Hook; meadows more gorgeous than the 
tulip fields of Haarlem; celestial flora more pure and pal- 
pitating than any fairest, faintest bloom in any rarest, 
dimmest glade throughout the whole woodland of The 
Hague. It is Holland in excelsis. 



BERLIN 

6 P.M. TO 7 P.M. 




;, -^ 



BERLIN 

6 P.M. TO 7 P.M. 

While the sun is still sinking behind the Potsdam hills 
that victorious old Fighting Fritz loved so well, and the 
hero himself, astride his bronze charger, in cloak and 
cocked hat in the statue group on the Linden, seems rid- 
ing slowly home to his neighboring palace with the length- 
ening shadows, the vast industrial army of the German 
capital issues in myriad units from its individual bar- 
racks and debouches on the spacious squares and broad 
avenues in quest of the evening's diversions. It is the 
lull hour. The long, hard day's work over, the amuse- 
ments of the night are shortly to begin. In this pleasant 
interval the bustling, aggressive city seems pervaded 
with a spirit of relaxation, and no more opportune 
moment presents for catching the Berliner off his guard 
and really seeing him as his intimates know him. 

This man, it should be borne in mind, is a type unto 
himself. The light-hearted Rhinelander, the solemn 
Bavarian, and the plodding, self-reliant Saxon are only 
half-brothers to the energetic, systematic, masterful 
Prussian whose most boisterous and irrepressible devel- 
opment is the Berliner. He plays as hard as he works, 



156 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

yielding to none in the thoroughness of either. He has a 
strong individuality, but with something of coarseness 
in feeling. He is enormously self-assertive, indefatig- 
able, and patient, but scratch through his veneer of cul- 
ture and you find a basis that is rude and often boorish. 
His optimism is sublime and his spirits correspondingly 
high. At work he is engrossed and determined, but when 
it is laid aside for the day he enters as eagerly upon his 
pastimes; and it is then one finds him witty and merry 
to a degree, but, at times, with the loudness and ostent- 
ation of a mischievous, unruly schoolboy. He is the sort 
of man that has a great time in zoological gardens, and 
goes picnicking in his best clothes. Intellectually, he is 
still as Buckle described him in the "History of Civiliza- 
tion in Europe," the foremost man in the world when he 
is a scholar and the most ordinary in the main. Euro- 
peans dub him "a practical hedonist"; in America we 
should refer to him as "rough and ready." 

As soon as supper is over these joyous and virile people 
display their primitive scorn of roofs and flock into the 
open for fun and frolic; yet supper, itself, has been one 
of Gargantuan proportions at which an observer, recall- 
ing Rabelais, might well have trembled for palmers in 
the cabbage. From the four quarters they gather in 
force to hang about the fountains in the roomy squares 
or loaf on the Linden benches until the call of the con- 
cert-hall or the comfortable, tree-shaded beer-garden 
allures to those bibulous indulgences that old Tacitus, 



BERLIN 157 

eighteen centuries ago, noted as peculiarly their own. 
For silent now are the forges and furnaces of Spandau, 
the clothing Fabriks of the northeast suburbs, the facto- 
ries of the east end, and all the skilled industries of the 
south. The artist colony of Moabit may no longer com- 
plain of drilling regiments, and the mammoth business 
blocks they call Hofe have swelled the throng of clerks 
on Friedrich and Leipziger Strassen. All have supped; 
and merchant and laborer fare forth en famille to take 
the evening air. 

With what heartiness and placidity does this multi- 
tude enjoy its ease ! It is a trick your highstrung peoples 
beyond the borders can never get the hang of. It calms 
one merely to look on at the contentment and satisfac- 
tion with which they stroll slowly and merrily along, 
chattering animatedly in their deep guttural speech, and 
greeting friends with punctilious bows and infinite hat- 
raisings. With every other word they "bend their backs 
and they bow their heads," like the celebrated character 
of " Dorothy." There is an agreeable absence of rush and 
hurry. Ponderous and massive, but with an erectness 
bred of military training, they wear their sombre, loose- 
fitting clothes with palpable relish, for comfort and in- 
conspicuousness are virtues of price with the Teuton. 
The stately gnddige Frau treads heavily in rustling silk, 
the mincing Frdulein favors ribbons and flounces, and 
mein Sohn is dapper in a tight suit, lavender gloves, and 
the indispensable little cane. Chaperons, of course, 



158 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

abound; for if a young man were to walk abroad alone 
with an unmarried girl in Berlin he would be consigning 
her at once to a plane with the painted nymphe de pave. 

The surroundings are animated. Motor-cars roll 
sedately along with the least din possible and with 
scrupulous regard for speed limits, and a prodigious as- 
sortment of cheap and comfortable Droschke cabs hovers 
expectantly about with their drivers decked out in long 
coats and patent-leather hats. From time to time an 
officer in brilliant uniform or a diplomat in severe black, 
with a row of orders across his breast, posts past hur- 
riedly to dine out in formal state; and with knowledge 
of the terrifying discomfort of a German social function 
comes confidence that most of them look from their smart 
broughams with profound envy at the jovial, care-free 
crowds that are so boisterously happy along the way. 

The visitor, who is struggling with an uncomfortable 
suspicion that he may be missing something in the other 
two rings of the circus, might do well to climb the Kreuz- 
berg and take the whole show in like a map. He has 
probably already learned that although the city lies 
prostrate on a level sandy plain as guiltless of a hill as a 
billiard table, yet the indomitable Berliner has repaired 
this oversight of nature by himself building a fine little 
mountain at a convenient spot due south. That is one 
of the advantages in rearing your own hills — you can 
have them where you want them. 

In the sullen red of the dying day one beholds from 



BERLIN 159 

the battlements of the Kreuzberg's Gothic tower a 
monster plain, twenty -five miles in an irregular circle, 
smothered in house-tops, and barred and seamed with 
an intricate entanglement of carefully made streets. He 
sees parks and squares in surprising profusion, and an 
abundance of foliage in spite of the sand; and there is a 
sluggish river winding a serpentine course, a Ringbahn 
encircling the suburbs, an elevated road that dives 
underground and becomes a subway, and surface lines 
without number. One could fancy a great cross in the 
centre of the city, whose upright is the long Friedrich- 
strasse and whose broad crosspiece is the splendid Unter 
den Linden. The last rays of the sun gild the roofs and 
spires of each of the "town districts," which the Prus- 
sian Diet has recently merged into a Greater Berlin of 
four million souls — Wilmersdorf, whose "millionaire 
peasants" became rich overnight by selling their lands 
to speculators; Charlottenburg the Pampered, that has 
increased tenfold in thirty years; Rixdorf the Prosperous; 
and Schoneberg the Renowned — which is well worth a 
sentimental journey to the graves of the Brothers Grimm 
under the cypresses of St. Matthew's Cemetery, if only 
out of gratitude for the familiar versions of " Cinderella," 
"Tom Thumb," "Little Red Riding Hood," and so 
many others of our childhood's companions. The sunset 
glory falls where glory is due — on a region at our feet 
of ancient martial fame; the little village that the 
Knights Templar held for centuries, and the broad 



160 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE^ 

Tempelhofer Feld, — Prussian drill-ground for two hun- 
dred years, — whither all Berliners turn holiday-faces 
when the Kaiser reviews the Guards in spring and 
autumn, and journey cockishly homeward when the show 
is over, "snapping their fingers at the foeman's taunts." 

In every section that the Kreuzberg looks down upon, 
and still farther away under the fading western skies, 
pleasant signs of recreation abound. The Linden over- 
flows, the lesser streets are swollen streams, and every 
open square is a ruffled lake of leisurely humanity. A 
strong tide of loiterers sets through the most popular of 
Berlin's breathing-places — the stately Tiergarten — 
and ripples there about the bases of statues and monu- 
ments, the marble settles of the Sieges-Allee, and the 
sculptured benches of the Anlagen of the Brandenburg 
Gate. There is the usual deep eddy before the graceful 
statue of the adored Queen Louise, which is half-buried 
in flowers by a grateful people every March 10. The 
bridle-paths teem with lines of aristocratic riders, with 
possibly the Kaiser himself among them. Indeed, no 
other part of the city may compare with the Tiergarten 
at this hour, so beautiful is it in turf and tree and so 
delightful in heavy fragrance. No wonder that Berliners 
have so long regarded it as the best last glimpse of life — 
to fight duels in by dawn in other days, and to take their 
own lives in now. 

All Berlin is now out of doors. The millionaires of the 
exclusive Tiergarten purlieus are cooling themselves in 




14*. «' 



m 



a 



BERLIN, UNTER DEN LINDEN 



BERLIN 161 

their villa gardens, and the middle-class man is beaming 
at the band at the Zoo, where the restaurant-terraces 
are overflowing into the flowered walks among the trees. 
There is a boisterous coterie of shouting children to 
every prim fountain in the prim squares. Out under 
the pines and cypresses of Grunewald crowds returning 
from the races are gazing admiringly at the pretty white 
villas that rim the verges of the placid forest lakes; and 
others are turning aside for the spectacular amusements 
of Luna Park. At Steglitz the bicycle races are ending 
and merrymakers are swarming into the Botanic Gar- 
dens to marvel over the cacti and palms of the long hot- 
houses. Capital boating is in progress on the Spree, and 
sailing at Wannsee, and steamer trips all through the 
suburbs. Bands are crashing in the noisy penny-shows 
of the tumultuous Zeltern; they are having beer in 
crowded Weinhandlungen, chocolate at dainty Condi- 
toreien, tind much besides in the jolly Vienna cafes that 
open out invitingly to the street. In every part of the 
city rise music and laughter and the sound of early 
revelry in pretty, tree-shaded summer gardens. It is 
an audible expression of the Berliners' joy cf living — 
their cherished Lebensfreude. 

Could we rise with Zeppelin we should find it the same 
now at Charlottenburg, and over at Potsdam. Charlot- 
tenburg the Prosperous is having its serene and digni- 
fied companies sauntering in quiet evening talk along 
the broad, handsome streets. The gay are at the lively 



162 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Orangerie, the philosophic in the trim, pert little parks, 
and the sentimental among the flaming roses and frag- 
rant trellises of the charming Palace Garden. In solemn 
and conscious superiority the great Technical High 
School and famed Reichanstalt shroud their learned 
cornices in the gloaming of tree-tops, and that chiefest 
mecca of all, the royal mausoleum, embowers its gleam- 
ing marble walls in heavy shrubbery at the bottom of its 
avenue of pines. No loiterer, you may be sure, but 
thinks reverently of the recumbent snowy effigies of the 
dead rulers that lie in the hushed gloom of that dim 
interior. 

Potsdam, Germany's Versailles, steeped in the melan- 
choly beauties of the Havelland pine forests, redolent 
of old Frederick the Great and his dream of an earthly 
Sans Souci, thinks nothing of drawing Berliners twenty 
miles to its twilight peace and calm. Exuberance temp- 
ers to the dignity and beauty of those parks and pal- 
aces where the Kaiser has his favorite royal seat. Up 
the broad Hauptweg they stroll by hundreds and gladden 
their patriotic eyes with the colonnades, porticoes, and 
statues of the vast New Palace that proved to the foes 
of defiant old Fritz that the sturdy warrior was far from 
bankrupt despite the Seven Years' War. Nor do they 
forget that it was here the late emperor, beloved "Unser 
Fritz," learned how 

"unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square." 



BERLIN 163 

The classic Town Palace of Potsdam is receiving its 
compliments, as usual, and no less the artistic Lustgar- 
ten, opulent in marbles and fountains; and many will be 
wandering even out to the cool and spacious park that 
lies about the charming Babelsberg Chateau. But old 
Frederick remains the local hero, and there is sure to be 
a crowd at the venerable lime-tree where petitioners 
used to stand to catch the eye of the king, and a kind of 
procession will be passing reverently before the garrison 
church, where lie his remains in the vault before which 
Napoleon outdid himself in eulogy the while he pilfered 
the old warrior's sword. And the leaping column of the 
Great Fountain will be the centre of an admiring throng, 
and scores will be going up and down the vista of broad 
stairs and fruited terraces that lead to the long, low 
palace of Sans Souci. As to the latter, a stranger might 
be pardoned if he were to mistake it for a casino, which it 
strikingly resembles, with its flat-domed entrance, line 
of caryatids like pedestal busts, and the row of stone urns 
on the balustraded top of the fagade. At this hour there 
is no admission, but one may peer through the low 
French windows and, in fancy, people Voltaire's room 
with a miserly ghost of the crafty old philosopher, see 
him fraternizing and quarreling with the king, imagine 
a royal soiree in progress with Frederick playing skill- 
fully on the flute, recall the brilliant talk of the Round 
Table, and think with pity of the cheerless, childless old 
soldier toiling wearily on those histories that Macaulay 



164 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

praised, and winding his big clock, and yearning all 
the while to lie buried among his dogs out on the ter- 
race. To many will come visions wrought from the ex- 
travagant fiction of Luise Miihlbach. What moral observ- 
ations and theatrical posings fell to poor Frederick's lot 
in her "Berlin and Sans Souci," sandwiched in among 
the woeful loves of Amelia and Baron Trenck and of 
the dancer Barbarina and the High Chancellor's son! 
But perhaps such literature helps one to understand the 
application to Frederick of the celebrated characteriza- 
tion of a very different personage, the " wisest, greatest, 
meanest of mankind." 

In Berlin proper there are two fine squares that best 
serve the well-advised as start-and-finish places for the 
most interesting evening walk to be had in the city 
— the Lustgarten before the Royal Palace and the 
Konigs-Platz at the Tiergarten corner. By this notable 
route one arrives, within the smoking of two cigars, at 
something like an intelligent comprehension of Berlin 
and Berliners. 

The gracious expanse of the Lustgarten is so appealing 
in the melancholy light of sunset that one almost feels, 
at the very beginning of the stroll, like going no farther 
for fear of faring worse, but rather remaining where he is 
among the trees and fountains and artistic shrubbery 
and watching the children playing Hashekater around 
the colossal Granite Basin, or Ringer-Ringer-Rosa at the 
marble stairs of Frederick William's lofty statue. Soft 



BERLIN 165 

splashes of deep colors warm the long rows of blinking 
windows in the Royal Palace on the left, and flush the 
domes of the cathedral and the columns of the Old Mus- 
eum's Ionic portico. Hundreds of Berliners are idling 
along the asphalt walks that entice to the Palace Bridge 
that arches the Spree in a double line of marble groups 
and so opens up the long, tree-shaded perspective of 
the Linden. To see it at this hour one would not guess 
that this fair Lustgarten had once been a neglected 
palace-close and even a dusty drill-ground; no more than 
one could believe that the occasional decrepit church 
or twisting, narrow street in the district in the rear is all 
that marks antiquity in the whole of the city. For the 
furious tempo of Berlin's development has swept every- 
thing before it. Three out of every four buildings, all 
over town, are garishly modern. Indeed, it is all so 
utterly of the present moment that it is hard to believe 
that even a group of fishermen's huts could have stood 
here beside the Spree so long as seven hundred years 
ago. Were one to see no more of Germany than its 
capital he might very easily imagine a Chicago or two 
somewhere in the empire, but certainly not a Nurem- 
berg. 

Sunset imparts an air of cordiality to the ponderous, 
baroque, seven-hundred-roomed Royal Palace, whose 
four stories of regular window lines suggest an ornate 
and elaborate factory that had been diverted from its 
original purpose by the addition of the chapel dome on 



166 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

the west wing. However, for those who cross its low 
terrace and enter the sculptured portals there awaits a 
revelation of pomp and majesty, of throne-room splend- 
ors and saloon magnificence, that rivals the best of 
Versailles and Vienna. Unhappily we cannot here see 
the windows of the royal family's apartments, for they 
are on the second floor of the opposite wing; whence the 
Kaiser looks out on the Neptune fountain of the Schloss- 
Platz and the elaborate fagade of the royal stables 
when the purple banner that denotes his presence flies 
from the palace standard. * 

In the gloaming the high portico columns, "Lion 
Killer," "Amazon," and shadowy sculptured groups of 
the vestibule of the classic Old Museum gleam through 
the dark branches of the trees with charming grace and 
effectiveness. Not all the imposing galleries on Museum 
Island, just beyond, can displace this well-beloved old 
temple of the arts in the affectionate regard of Berliners. 
The commanding Dom, or cathedral, dominates the 
Lustgarten and all the city besides, but in the modest 
and inoffensive manner that is becoming in an archi- 
tectural debutante of only six seasons — though that is 
quite long enough for a building to become passe in 
Berlin. Its granite walls, copper domes, high-vaulted 
portals, elaborately carved cornices, and profusion of 
statuary stand out in beautiful relief against the dark- 
ness of the trees beyond. 

At this hour the sturdy, besculptured Palace Bridge 



BERLIN 167 

is thronged with loiterers leaning over the broad balus- 
trades to admire the festoons of lichen on the opposite 
masonry embankment or gaze down into the languid 
blue Spree. These waters have journeyed wearily all 
the way from distant Saxony, and with little enough 
to delight them along the road, excepting, perhaps, the 
scenes of the romantic and picturesque forest — Venice 
of Spreewald, where the strange Wendish people in 
outlandish garb pole flat market-barges through the 
labyrinth of canals and jabber to each other in a foreign 
tongue. Even on reaching the capital, the career of the 
Spree continues uneventful and dejected; and shortly 
after clearing the city it gives up in discouragement and 
empties itself into the Havel at Spandau. One finds a 
pleasant evening-life along its masonry banks, however, 
in spite of the personal indifference of the stream itself, 
and sometimes even of a brisk and important nature, 
thanks to the shipping from the canals. Beside these 
urban embankments one sees, here and there, a narrow 
sidewalk between the wall and the houses that instantly 
recalls the delightful little rivas along the Venice canals. 
It is interesting to watch the swift, pert little steamers 
that dash up and down the stream and to take note of 
the air of bravado with which they plunge under the 
low bridges. Then, there are the soldiers washing their 
linen service uniforms on floating docks. But best of all 
are the canal boats. These invariably have a fat woman 
at the tiller and an excited dog dancing from end to end, 



168 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

while a sturdy husband propels a snail-like passage by 
means of a long pole which he sets to his shoulder like a 
crutch and inserts the other end into niches in the walls 
and so plods the entire length of the deck, with the boat 
advancing slowly under his feet. 

Entering Unter den Linden from the Schloss-Briicke, 
the imposing array of splendid public buildings on 
either hand of the expanding vista suggests the middle 
of the street as the only adequate viewpoint — and 
the majority take it, in the evening. The visitor is 
bound speedily to conclude that, unless it be Vienna, 
no European city can boast a more beautiful or impres- 
sive double line of structures. They have dignity and 
solidity in appearance, richness and taste in decoration, 
and spaces to stand in of princely proportions. The 
agreeable effect of shade trees has been freely made use 
of, and on all sides one sees that profusion of sculpture 
and statuary in which Berlin is as rich as London, for 
example, is poor. As if impressed with such surround- 
ings, the evening crowds move along slowly and observ- 
antly, looking up admiringly at the dark gray fronts — 
the statue-set facade of the Arsenal, the stately palaces 
of Crown Prince and Crown Princess, the Opera House, 
the rococo Royal Library, and the palace of old Emperor 
William I, from whose famous corner window the con- 
queror of Sedan used to look out affectionately on the 
street life of his people. With no less of satisfaction must 
the old emperor have looked over the heads of the crowds 



BERLIN 169 

at the University across the way — the proper toast of 
all Germany. One notes its open square and wide triple 
story and thinks of the ripe scholarship suggested by the 
surrounding statues of its savants, Helmholtz, Momm- 
sen, Treitschke, and the great William and Alexander 
von Humboldt, whose ashes lie out at Tegel under Thor- 
waldsen's beautiful "Hope." Here six hundred teach- 
ers and ten thousand students work in the inspiring 
memory of such masters as these, and of such others as 
Fichte and Hegel and Schelling. From contemplations 
over the intellectual achievements of Prussia one turns 
to martial glory in the form of Rauch's immortal 
equestrian statue of Frederick the Great, about which 
the crowds are now swarming, and observes the hero's 
head cocked in characteristic defiance and his hand 
lightly resting on the hilt of his ready sword. Berliners 
make great ado in studying and identifying the num- 
erous eminent men of that period whose' reliefs are 
exquisitely executed on the four sides of the lofty 
pedestal. 

And now we pass under the limes and chestnuts of the 
five-streeted Linden, keeping to the broad gravel prome- 
nade in the centre where the children play all day and 
their parents fill the benches half the night. On its outer 
streets one may see the finest hotels, theatres, cafes, 
and shops of the city. It is amusing to watch the people 
at this hour, in settling their arrangements for the 
evening, cluster about the poster pillars that they call 



170 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

"Litfassaulen," and the newspaper kiosks, scanning 
announcements and theatre bills. Familiar to them, but 
suggestive to a stranger, are the iron standards at im- 
portant street intersections supporting placards of the 
red cross of the hospital boards to indicate the loca- 
tions of emergency surgeons, who are always on the 
spot. You may rest on a Linden bench a moment, if you 
like, but expect thrifty Berlin to tax you for it; and read 
carefully the conspicuous placards, so redolent of this 
systematic city, to learn just where you may sit; for 
some are "reserved for women," some for "nurses with 
children," others for "adults," and what remain for 
mere "men." 

But the well-advised will break the walk when they 
reach the corner of Friedrichstrasse for a few minutes of 
refreshments at the celebrated Cafe Bauer, where open 
house is held for all the world, and where you may take 
your ease under the frescoes of Anton Werner, or, at a 
balcony table, look down on the cosmopolitan conges- 
tion of the streets and observe ladies having ices across 
the way at Kranzler's after the fatigue of shopping at 
Tietz's or Wertheim's. 

The animated scenes of the Cafe Bauer are those of 
busy restaurants the world over, with the possible dif- 
ference that Berliners make more of cafe life than many 
others, as being an institution essential to temperaments 
that crave social diversion, simple enjoyment and friend- 
liness. So we hear much laughter and find the air vital 



BERLIN 171 

with the vociferous rumbling thunder of this deep- 
lunged speech, and with continual explosions of "So!" 
and "Ach!" and "Ja wohl!" and "Bitte!" and "Ent- 
schuldigen!" and " Wunderschon ! " and, expecially, 
"Prosit!" There is an incessant clamoring for waiters 
by handclaps and shouts of "Kellner!" to which those 
distracted functionaries respond with " Augenblick!" — 
"in a wink of the eye," — and dash off in haste, to re- 
turn at leisure. The gold that falls in Trinkgeld passes 
belief; but tipping is like breathing all over Berlin. 
It is said that the head waiters pay handsomely for 
the positions. You will see few people in the Cafe 
Bauer uncompanioned, for sociability is a national 
characteristic. The man in the corner reading the 
"Fliegende Blatter" or "Illustrirte Zeitung" or any 
other of the eleven thousand publications of the city 
will shortly be joined by some friend for whom he is 
waiting and raise his voice in the general "Prosit!" 
chorus. Should you address the waiter in English, you 
will be answered at once in that language; as you would, 
for that matter, in any Berlin business house. The 
formality on every hand, the bowing and eternal thank- 
ing, is of the Berliner Berlinesque. It is a trick that is 
soon picked up, and it is no time at all before you can 
enter a store with the best of them, remove your hat 
and wish the clerk "Mahlzeit," remain uncovered until 
your purchase is made, again bow and say "Mahlzeit," 
replace your hat, and go about your business. 



172 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

From a balcony table at the Bauer you may study, 
as you elect, the diners within or the crowds without. If 
it be the latter, you doubtless observe at once the exten- 
sive presence of the military element that so preemi- 
nently dominates the empire. There goes a stiff -backed, 
narrow-waisted, tight-coated officer jangling his sword 
and fussing at his gloves. His chin is tilted at a super- 
cilious angle and his mustachios are trained to look 
fierce, like the Kaiser's. As he approaches a brother 
officer he begins a salute a quarter-block away and keeps 
it up as far again after passing. He would perish before 
he would unbend in public to give the most unofficial 
of winks at the pretty, barearmed nursemaid who is 
tripping demurely by, and yet it is whispered that in 
private "Die Wacht am Rhein" is not the only song 
he knows. And lo, the humble man of the ranks, — 
facetiously dubbed "Sandhase," — who is saluting and 
"goose-stepping" to some superior or other the greater 
part of the time. You perceive him now to be roaming 
about with evident relish ; and a familiar bit of local color 
is the dark blue tunic and gray trousers and the brass- 
bedecked leather helmet with its Pickelhaube top spike. 
You learn to distinguish the corps, in time, by the color 
of the shoulder knots. 

Parenthetically, it will be remembered that these 
husky fellows are paid just nine cents a day, and out of 
that go two and a half cents for dinner. Their only free 
rations are coffee and the famous black bread. They 



BERLIN 173 

carry their "cash balance" suspended about the neck 
in a bag, and any time an officer wishes to make sure 
the "sand-rabbit" has not been squandering his money 
too fast, he opens the bag at morning inspection and 
examines the contents. Pay is small, all the way up; 
a second lieutenant, with heavy and unavoidable 
social obligations, receives twenty dollars a month — 
like an American sergeant. Higher officers must live in 
town and keep their horses. "Marry money " becomes 
the first requirement of the "silent manual." But 
Germany's exposed borders must be lined with bayonets, 
and she has not forgotten that the French war cost her 
a hundred thousand men in killed and wounded; so 
she maintains an army of a peace-footing strength of 
six hundred thousand, at a cost of $175,000,000 a year. 
The "Defenders of the Fatherland" become, inconse- 
quence, the pets of the court and the social arbiters of 
the empire. 

On leaving the Bauer it is amusing to dip for a few 
moments into the tumult of rip-roaring Friedrichstrasse 
and sweep along with merchants, government clerks, 
shop girls, artists, soldiers, and all the rest of the jovial, 
motley company. Out in the middle of the street stu- 
dents go rushing by, boisterously inviting trouble and 
waving their hats and the husky bludgeons they call 
canes. Conveyances of all descriptions are coming 
and going — Droschken, stages, double-decked omni- 
buses, motor-cars, el al. The corner of Leipziger- 



174 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

strasse is a whirlpool through which traffic moves like 
so much drifting pack-ice. Trolley cars pass gingerly 
by to come to a stop at the iron posts marked "Halte- 
stellen." One notes that the little " isles of safety " in the 
middle of the street have each its representative of the 
omnipresent police, dressed up like major-generals in 
military long coats and nickel-pointed helmets. They 
could tell you that Leipzigerstrasse is just as crowded 
all the way to the tumultuous Potsdam Gate, where on 
each sharp corner of the five radiating streets ponderous 
hotels project into the maelstrom like pieces of toast 
on spits. I say the policemen could tell you that, if 
they wanted to, but the probability is they would only 
wave excited hands and shout "Verboten!" 

And that makes you realize that about everything 
you want to do in Berlin is forbidden for some reason 
or other. No yarn of the Mormons ever conveyed an 
idea of such perpetual, unwinking vigilance as is second 
nature to this police force. Soon after arriving you 
become uncomfortably conscious of being secretly and 
unremittingly watched, but while this rankles for a 
while you eventually become acclimated, as it were, 
and pass into a hardened stage of moral irresponsibility 
where you are scrupulously circumspect and not a little 
sly. Since the police have elected to play the role of your 
conscience you determine to go about without one, like 
Peter Schlemihl and his shadow, in the balmy confidence 
that whatever you are up to must be all right or the 



BERLIN 175 

authorities would have notified you that it was "ver- 
boten " and had you up at headquarters for one of those 
myriad fines that range from two cents up. 

Parenthetically, again, it is the people's fault. They 
are government-mad; intoxicated with bureaucracy. 
Not for all the gold reserve at Spandau would they abate 
one jot of this supervision. There is a law for everything. 
Some one has said that for every pfennig the German 
pays in taxes he expects and receives a pfennig's worth 
of government. You see it on every hand. Each bus 
and car is placarded to announce its exact seating cap- 
acity, as well as the precise amount of standing-room 
on the platforms; once that space is occupied it would 
not stop for you, though you go on your knees. Have 
you ever taken notice of the little metallic racks at each 
end of a Berlin street car? That is where you leave the 
cigar you may be smoking when you enter; putting 
it anywhere else is absolutely "verboten." It is the 
spirit of the time. Berlin is a "touch-the-button" town 
— a machine-made community of deadly rote and rule. 
System is the thing. Street numbers have arrows indi- 
cating which way they run; letter boxes are cleared every 
fifteen minutes; a letter goes by the pneumatic Rohrpost 
with the speed of a telegram; packages are sent by the 
parcel delivery more quickly and more cheaply than by 
express; hotels have electric elevators and vacuum 
cleaning. It is so all over Germany. Who ever sees a 
picture of Diisseldorf, these days, without a Zeppelin 



176 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

airship in the background ? How eloquent it is of the 
thoroughness of this people whose boastful "Made in 
Germany " is expressive of the rankest materialism, that 
their warlike capital should be distinguished for the 
quality and quantity of its artistic feeling, and excel, be- 
sides, in usefulness, as exemplified in scores of museums 
that are admittedly the most instructive of any in the 
world. 

As the last of daylight disappears, Friedrichstrasse's 
shops blaze out brilliantly in every guise of electric- 
ity, the present pet scientific rage. The window 
dressings are highly attractive, but seldom the interiors 
behind them. Americans are finding home products in 
the kodak and sewing-machine stores, in penny-in-the- 
slot establishments, and at alleged American soda- 
fountains and bars — all displayed for sale in business 
buildings that are better built than the battlements 
of Jericho. People need not go out of a single block on 
Friedrichstrasse to secure every comfort they require, 
for in so small a space one finds fashionable hotels, 
hotels garnis, pensions, or the exemplary hospices af- 
fected by ladies traveling alone; where also you may 
dine at establishments to suit your purse — at extrava- 
gant cost, or on the lightest of repasts at a Conditorei, 
or on a heavy seven-course dinner at a popular restau- 
rant for twenty cents, with a glass of beer in the bargain. 
One finds the dance halls largely supported by for- 
eigners and tourists, of which latter America sends fully 



BERLIN 177 

forty thousand annually. It is also speedily apparent 
that the undertow of the feverish stream brings its 
wreckage to the surface, where the rouged cheek and 
carmined lip betray the presence of fiercer kinds of 
"questing bestes" than ever were recorded in the 
"Morted'Arthur." 

Out again under the rustling trees of the Linden one 
strolls on in increasing delight. In the growing zest of the 
evening the prosperous crowds toss pfennigs to the beg- 
ging old "Linden Angels" and patronize the flower- 
venders and newsboys. Of the Linden's fivefold boule- 
vard, the outer streets are rumbling with heavy wagons 
and cabs, the drive with carriages, the bridle-path is 
lively with belated riders and the broad middle promen- 
ade is overflowing with pedestrians. Good Americans, 
on passing the United States Embassy headquarters, at 
the corner of Schadowstrasse, raise their hats in a sud- 
den welling of patriotic reverence, and very likely with a 
wistful sympathy for the heimweh that must frequently 
oppress the two thousand members of the American 
colony that tarry in the pleasant environs of Victoria 
Louise Platz. Diplomats are coming and going on aris- 
tocratic Wilhelmstrasse, which sweeps southward at this 
point, and where the lights are beginning to sparkle 
before the double line of government department 
buildings, royal palaces, and foreign embassy houses. 
The famous palace of mellow gray stone, in which the 
Iron Chancellor lived and held court like a king in the 



178 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

heyday of his power, shrouds itself proudly in the deep 
green of its garden of thick shrubbery. 

But all this fails to hold the stroller's attention when 
he glances about and sees he is at the end of the Linden 
and that a dozen steps will carry him to a sudden widen- 
ing into stately Pariser-Platz, at the bottom of which, 
flanked by fountained lateral lawns and light-flecked in 
the twilight blur, rises one of Berlin's chiefest features — 
the famed Brandenburg Gate. When the Berlin exile is 
homesick this is the picture he always sees — the impos- 
ing five-arched gateway, creamy against the misty deep 
green of the Tiergarten tree-tops, the dignified fronts of 
surrounding embassy houses, flowered grass plots on 
either hand, leaping fountains, the long lines of the trees 
of the Linden, and through the gateway -portals glimpses 
of colonnades and white statues in the cool, dusky 
allees of the park. 

It is an inspiring spot. The classic grace of Greece is 
present in the gate itself, — a copy of the Athenian 
Propylsea, — and the eventualities of warfare are sug- 
gested in Schadow's bronze Quadriga above it, which 
the envious Napoleon carried off to his Paris. These old 
trees of the Linden know much of the turning of the 
wheel of fortune; they shook to the tread of the conquer- 
ing legions of Napoleon the Great, after Jena, when 
Queen Louise and her little ten-year-old son fled in want 
and humiliation; but they also rocked, threescore and 
five years later, to the shouting of the armies of a united 



BERLIN 179 

and triumphant Germany when that same little boy, 
become Emperor William I, returned from the annihil- 
ation of Napoleon the Little. 

Any German student, adequately inspired, will tell the 
legend of the Quadriga; how the Goddess of Victory 
each New Year's Eve drives her chariot and four up the 
Linden, pays her respects to Frederick the Great on his 
bronze horse and is back in her place by 1 a.m. And that 
is the night, by the way, that the Great Elector rides his 
charger all over the city, taking note of the year's 
changes, and returns to his position on the Kurfursten 
Briicke before the stroke of one. Out of the same Nibe- 
lungen Land comes the legend of the White Lady that 
goes moaning through the Royal Palace when a Hohen- 
zollern is about to die. Now we are on Berlin traditions, 
it maybe said^that there is more agreeable flesh and blood 
to the custom of receiving bouquets from the witches of 
the Blocksberg on Walpurgis Nacht (May 1), and an 
altogether human foundation for the ancient torch 
dances at Hohenzollern weddings, of which Carlyle has 
given so enthusiastic a description. 

Beyond the gate, we face a beautiful picture. The 
sweeping arc of the Anlagen, rimmed with marble 
benches, balustrades, and statues, is spirited with pleas- 
ure seekers, and its thick lines of lights are all glowing 
brightly, and carriages and cabs are speeding noiselessly 
across it. An attractive dilemma presents, as to whether 
we choose to reach the adjoining Konigs-Platz by the 



180 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

embowered and vernal Path of Peace — the tree-arched 
Friedens-Allee through this corner of the Tiergarten — 
or by the celebrated War- Way — the Sieges-Allee — 
between the double lines of the thirty-two marble groups 
portraying the rulers of the House of Brandenburg. 
There are advantages to either; the first is shorter and 
supremely sylvan, but the second presents an opportun- 
ity of settling for one's self the violent difference of 
opinion as to the artistic merits of this elaborate gift of 
the Kaiser to his capital. Each of the groups of the latter 
has a heroic statue of a Prussian ruler half encircled by a 
marble bench whose ends are Hermes busts of eminent 
men of that period. We are entitled to an opinion. 
Some pronounce it incomparable; others think it pomp- 
ous and insipid, and very much like a stone cutter's yard. 
In either event one soon reaches the Konigs-Platz, and 
beholds envisioned the power and glory of the Father- 
land. At no hour does it appear to such advantage as at 
twilight. The dusky shadows lie heavy about the great 
circular field of trees and shrubbery, shrouding the sculp- 
tured mass of the vast Reichstag building until its huge 
glass dome looms like a colossal moon in a lake of emer- 
ald. Bismarck and Von Moltke rise above their statue- 
groups like demigods of bronze, and the lofty Column 
of Victory, studded with captured cannon, rears its 
brisk and lightly-poised angel to acclaim the glories of 
Germany to an invisible world among the skies. Kroll's 
neighboring summer garden is gay in hundreds of col- 



BERLIN 181 

ored lights that glow in the grass plots and dim arbors 
and hang like pendent fruit from the branches of the 
trees. The dusk deepens into gloom, and twilight plays 
Whistler-tricks with fountain spray and statue. Distant 
domes pass, in night wizardry, for ghostly war-tents of 
Von Moltke. Faint vapors steal among the trees of the 
lower levels, and the dark of dim retreats is deeper for 
the brilliance of groups of lights that fade surrounding 
foliage into shades of pale olive. Music drifts softly over 
from Broil's, and the subdued hum of engulfing Berlin 
conveys a pleasant sense of companionship and a feeling 
of admiration and affection. 

In the vivid appreciation of all we have just been see- 
ing, one thinks in amazement, What a people ! Harvey- 
ized against everything but progress, they are bending 
their tremendous energy to the enormous task of trans- 
forming Berlin from the capital of a kingdom into the 
capital of an empire. To see what they are accomplish- 
ing is to whip one's wastrel forces and holystone his resol- 
ution. Here is energy and power of a kind to move 
mountains. Foreign critics bite their nails in envy and 
decry Berlin as "a parvenu among capitals"; they say 
it lacks distinction, is solemnly conscious of its new 
dignity, is "big without being cosmopolitan, and im- 
posing without being impressive." That it is garishly 
modern is true enough, as in the light of its sudden 
apotheosis it could not have otherwise been, and its own 
people are first to admit frequent grave errors in artistic 



182 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

taste. But taken all in all, a fairer, more substantial or 
more worthy city has never before been reared in the 
same length of time in the history of mankind. Nor is 
the end yet. The soaring impetus of the capital waxes 
with its own effort; gathers strength with each fresh 
achievement. Germany may be pardoned for taking 
pride in having risen as a world power to the very van of 
the nations, with her war-lord one of the foremost figures 
of the era. That his capital is his special pride is well 
known, and there are many who feel that he has gone far 
to realizing his expressed determination to make Berlin 
the most beautiful city of Europe. 

One rests in the Konigs-Platz, at the foot of Bis- 
marck's statue, and regards with wonder the stern fea- 
tures of that man of "blood and iron," to whose pre- 
science and indomitable resolution these vast results are 
so largely due. The best of Bismarck is not dead, but 
lives and increases in the activities of his countrymen. 
As was said of another, "Would you see his monument, 
look about you." The destiny Germany is working out 
is the one he bequeathed her; all this fair fruition is the 
flower of his seeding. The Kaiser may continue his idol- 
atry of his grandfather by sowing the empire with statues 
of the war emperor, but the people do not for a moment 
forget that the man who previsioned and compelled these 
results was he at the feet of whose grim statue we un- 
cover in deep respect in the evening calm of the Konigs- 
Platz. The hand was the hand of Bismarck. 



LONDON 

7 P.M. TO 8 P.M. 



f? 




LONDON 

7 P.M. TO 8 P.M. 

It will probably have seemed to many that in London 
the evening hour between seven and eight o'clock is the 
most distinctive and significant of the twenty-four, the 
one that is most expressive of the city's real life and 
character. It has something in its mellowness and re- 
pose that stimulates in the spectator a subtle receptive- 
ness and quickens a special sensitiveness to the trooping 
impressions of this manifold, multi-faceted community. 
One comes nearest then to truly "sensing" colossal, 
world-weary, indomitable London, as she relaxes a 
gracious hour to catch breath in the turmoil and struggle 
that has endured for more than a dozen centuries. For 
quite the same reason as you would not say that the 
ocean is most characteristic in either calm or storm, but 
rather when rolling in long and steady swells, so Lon- 
don is not so much her real self at her most vacant hour 
of sunrise when the milk carts clatter where the omni- 
buses usually are and the street lights turn as wan and 
sickly as the tramps on the benches, nor yet at the height 
of her turbulence when busy men are dashing hatless 
about Cheapside and loaded drays are delayed for hours 



186 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

in traffic blocks, but rather in the agreeable period of 
early evening "let-up" while truce is effective between 
the working-hours of day and the playing-hours of 
night. 

Of course, "let-up" is meant in a comparative sense 
only, for in the bright lexicon of London there is properly 
no such word; but there comes at seven o'clock at least 
as much of a lull as is ever to be looked for here. The 
savage roar of the streets is dulled to a deep growl, the 
crowds become shuffling and idle and their relative 
depletion and the proportionate activity and congestion 
in restaurants, pensions, and hotel dining-rooms are 
eloquent of the fact that the great city is now engaged in 
solemn rites before the Roast Beef of Old England. Nor 
does the altered complexion of things come amiss to the 
distracted foreign visitors who, though at odds in every- 
thing else, are of one opinion in this, that, without reser- 
vation on the part of humor, during the greater part of 
the day they cannot see London for the people. By that 
they mean that the life of the streets is so intense and so 
varied that it proves a serious distraction from taking 
adequate note of the appearance and significance of the 
city itself. It is, therefore, with profound satisfaction 
that they welcome an hour in which they may devote a 
portion of their energy to something more edifying than 
jostling pedestrians or escaping sudden and sordid de- 
struction by motor-car, hansom, or bus. It is now that 
the town throws off the yoke of its drivers and the very 



LONDON 187 

buildings become instinct with individuality and char- 
acter. Every little dim and noiseless square, each broad 
and lordly park, the massive mansions of the great whose 
names have been in history for ages, business blocks of 
Old-World charm to which trade seems the merest 
incident, blackened pavements and Wren's slender 
steeples, every memory-haunted nook and corner, all 
wrought by smoke and fog to a blood-brotherhood of 
neutral tones, are joining the song Father Thames is 
singing of dignity, power, and grandeur, — all breathe 
the common exultation of being London. It is more than 
Self -Assertion. It is Apotheosis ! 

If this may seem an extravagant idea to some, it is 
certain there can be but one mind as to the relief that 
comes with the "let-up." It gives a man a chance to 
find himself after being lost and daunted and disheartened 
all day, and to square off and give the giant a good look 
between the eyes and happily attain to some just impres- 
sion. "Some just impression" is doubtless within the 
possibilities, but any complete one is not. London is 
so vast in territory, interests, activities, and history — 
such a "monstrous tuberosity of civilized life," as Car- 
lyle observed — that it effectually defies comprehen- 
sion. It cannot be taken in. Look south on it from Horn- 
sey or Primrose Hill, or west on it from Blackwell or the 
Greenwich Observatory, or east from the top of the opera 
house at Hammersmith, or north from Crystal Palace, 
and you may see a vast prairie of house-tops and sharp, 



188 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

aspiring steeples and irregular, twisting streets, but you 
also observe quite the same kind of prairies rolling away 
under the horizon beyond your ken. If one were to try 
such an experiment right at the heart of things, futility 
would still be obvious, for either the Victoria Tower of 
Parliament or the slightly higher dome of St. Paul's lifts 
you only four hundred feet above the pavement to hang 
like a lookout in midocean. There might be hope of a com- 
pleter impression if you tried an aeroplane; in which case 
prostrate London-town would take the seeming of some 
fabulous "questing beste" of the "Morte d' Arthur," 
in format the traditional lion, rotund, monstrous, and 
oddly marked, half -reclining and gazing fixedly seaward 
down the Thames. A monster, indeed, fourteen miles 
by ten, and of a vitality so expansive that his nebulous 
aura pervades an area of seven hundred square miles ! 
Along his grim, grimy side the Thames draws a crawling 
blue band with a deep U for the convenience of his paws 
as it swings around the Isle of Dogs, the Regent's Canal 
marks him lightly up the shoulder and clear across the 
upper body, and along the profile of the head meanders 
the marshy River Lea. Odd green patches would stand 
for the parks — Regent's on his back, Hyde, Green, and 
St. James's on his flank, and on his right ear, Victoria. 
At the present hour he is speckled with a myriad of 
lights from the tip of his tail to his chin-whisker, and 
doubtless in all respects looks wild enough to daunt Sir 
Launcelot himself. 



LONDON 189 

To the average visitor London is the Strand, Fleet 
Street, Regent Street, the Embankment, Piccadilly 
Circus, Trafalgar Square, the British Museum, and the 
Tower. But tastes differ in this as in other things, and 
Boswell was doubtless justified in amusing himself by 
noting how different London was to different people. 
Opinions on the subject have always been very decided 
but hopelessly conflicting. "Sir," quoth Dr. Johnson to 
Boswell at the Mitre Tavern, "the happiness of London 
is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it." 
Note Heinrich Heine, on the other hand, observing in 
his "English Fragments": "Do not send a philosopher 
to London, and, for Heaven's sake, do not send a poet. 
The grim seriousness of all things; the colossal monotony ; 
the engine-like activity; themoroseness even of pleasure; 
and the whole of this exaggerated London will break his 
heart." There is wisdom, as always, in a happy mean; 
and one might do worse than to go about his sight-seeing 
with the whetted curiosity and flaming imagination of 
those country children once described by Leigh Hunt 
as fancying they see "the Duke of Wellington standing 
with his sword drawn in Apsley House, and the Queen, 
sitting with her crown on, eating barley-sugar in Buck- 
ingham Palace." 

To such a mood as this, evening impressions are 
fresh and vivid, and the goggle-eyed stranger, suddenly 
set down at seven o'clock before the Shaftesbury Foun- 
tain in the centre of Piccadilly Circus, — "feeling in 



190 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

heart and soul the shock of the huge town's first pre- 
sence," — would probably have his own opinion of any 
intimation that there was really very little doing at that 
time in view of the hour and the absence of Londoners in 
the country. He would rather incline to the view of the 
Chinese prince who took one look at the wave of human- 
ity sweeping across London Bridge and went back to his 
hotel and wrote home that he had reached the spot where 
all human life originates. Certainly the stranger at 
Piccadilly Circus would need but one wild glance at the 
glare and blaze of lights, the excitement around the "Cri," 
the beckoning bill-boards of the Pavilion, the dazzle of 
shop windows in the sweeping curve of the Regent Street 
quadrant and the tremendous interweaving of carriages, 
swift hansoms, delivery bicycles, lumbering busses, 
"taxis," "flys," and "growlers," to start him shouting 
to the nearest "Bobby" through the roar of the wild 
surge for safe passage to the sidewalk — which would 
be readily and obligingly accomplished by that calmest 
and most tranquil of officials, the mere lift of whose hand 
is as miraculously effective as the presence of a regiment 
at " charge." 

And yet the intimation to the stranger would be en- 
tirely within the facts, for a good proportion of London- 
ers are too far away to hear the seven o'clock bells ring 
in town. The Briton's passion for out of doors leads him 
far afield. Thousands are at this hour in the surf at 
Brighton or strolling on the terraced streets of the chalk 



LONDON 191 

cliffs there; hundreds are at Harrow enjoying the wide 
prospect beloved by the boy Byron; others in the pleas- 
ant villages of Hatfield and St. Albans; some are spying 
for deer in Epping Forest; and a happy multitude is 
turning from the "Maze" and Dutch Gardens of Hamp- 
ton Court to roll homeward by brake and motor-car 
along the incomparable chestnut avenue of Bushy Park, 
among the placid deer of Richmond, and the manifold 
delights of Kew Gardens. For hours the "tubes," sur- 
face cars, and busses have been working to capacity to 
get business men home, and loaded trains have been 
groaning out of Charing Cross, Euston, Paddington, 
St. Pancras, Victoria, and Waterloo. They have all 
arrived by now at their various destinations — around 
the picturesque Common of Clapham, the breezy 
heights of Highgate, the river greens of Hammersmith, 
the lush meadows of Dulwich, the stuccoed villas of 
Islington, the quietude of Bethnal Green, or the wooded 
gardens of Brixton Road. Fancy residential property, 
in every guise of architectural surprises, is drowsing in 
the shade of elm and oak and poplar and humming to 
the contented chatter of reunited families. The fortun- 
ate stranger whom Sir Launcelot has "asked down" 
to "Joyous Garde" is reveling in the generous roast that 
makes its august appearance between courses of Scotch 
salmon and Surrey fowl, and presently there will be pol- 
itics and Havanas after the ladies have left, and later on 
a general assembling in a serene walled garden with 



192 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

light laughter and low-voiced talk and mild discussion 
of water-parties, dinners, and dances. 

The London parks are in full revelry now, with bands 
at play and tens of thousands of loiterers crowding the 
benches and moving along broad, graveled walks under 
the deep shadows of old elms and in the fragrance of 
trim flowerbeds. At Hampstead Heath, for example, 
not so much as the ghost of a highwayman haunts the 
bracken-carpeted hills, and East-Enders are out there in 
force along" Judge's Walk," and in the "Vale of Health" 
that Keats and Leigh Hunt admired, or up at the 
"Flagstaff" inspecting "Jack Straw's Castle," as 
Dickens so often did, or speculating upon the sources of 
the ponds with as much aplomb as ever did Mr. Pick- 
wick himself. 

Down on rugged and untamed Blackheath the band is 
playing at "The Point," and in all that region where Wat 
Tyler and Jack Cade stirred Kent to rebellion the talk is 
now of London docks and the latest scores of the golfers. 

Up at airy Victoria Park the swans in the ponds and 
the chaffinches in the hawthorn bushes are performing 
to enthusiastic audiences, and the Gothic Temple of the 
Victoria Fountain is rimmed with rough gallants and 
the "Sallies of their Alleys" who betray no inclination 
to "attempt from Love's sickness to fly." 

The cyclists are foregathered at picturesque Batter- 
sea Park and chatting with their sweethearts over tea in 
the refreshment rooms, while hundreds of unemployed 



LONDON 193 

who can afford neither bicycle, sweetheart, nor tea 
gaze gloomily on the gorgeous blooms of the sub-trop- 
ical garden, loll over the balustrade of the long Thames 
embankment, and end up by sprawling face down on the 
grass or dozing fitfully on the benches. 

Perhaps the largest outpouring of all is at ever popu- 
lar Regent's Park, preferred by the substantial middle- 
class, — long noted, like George I, for virtues rather 
than accomplishments. Doubtless they are now rambling 
through the Zoo, exploring the Botanic Gardens where 
flowered borders and large stone urns are spilling over 
with brilliant color, watching the driving in the "Outer 
Circle," or swelling the throng on the long Board Walk. 
Hundreds on these shady acres are taking their ease 
with all the unction of Arden : — 

"Under the greenwood tree 
Who loves to lie with me, 
And tune his merry note, 
Unto the sweet bird's throat." 

In all probability tremendous admiration is being 
expressed at aristocratic Hyde Park, as usual, for the 
broad reaches of velvety turf and the venerable oaks 
and elms. More than one will indulge a pleasant reverie 
over the dead and gone who have braved it there — 
Pepys in his new yellow coach, dainty ladies in powder 
and patches flashing sparkling eyes on the gallants, and 
the scented, unhappy beaux who have sighed with 
Shenstone along these allees: 



194 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

" When forced from dear Hebe to go 
What anguish I felt at my heart." 

Across the Serpentine in the children's paradise of 
Kensington Gardens we should find that the Board Walk 
and the "Round Pond" lose none of their drawing- 
power with the years and that the fountains and flow- 
ers are as beautiful and as highly prized as ever. There 
is the additional attraction of having a chance, by keep- 
ing a sharp eye on the tops of the tall ash-trees, of catch- 
ing a glimpse of Peter Pan preparing to fly home to his 
mother's window. 

The exclusive shades of Green Park and St. James's 
have a convenient nearness that entices hundreds from 
the roaring thoroughfares of the neighborhood, and 
at this hour their old elms and graceful bowers give 
impartially of their repose and peace to hearts that are 
heavy and hearts that are gay. It would seem inevitable 
that thoughts must come of the royal and princely 
companies that once trod these ways — of Charles II, 
at least, strolling in St. James's surrounded by his dogs, 
pausing a while to feed his ducks and then tripping 
gayly up the "Green Walk" for a chat with Nell 
Gwynn over the garden wall, while scandalized John 
Evelyn hurries home to make note in his journal of 
"a very familiar discourse between the King and Mrs. 
Nelly." 

The London social season being at its height during 
May, June, and July, while Parliament is in session, be- 



LONDON 195 

lated clerks wending homeward between seven and eight 
o'clock find the great houses occupied and dinner-par- 
ties in progress with as much universality as a New 
York clerk, under like circumstances at home, would 
expect to see in December. All Mayfair, Belgravia, and 
Pimlico is indulging in feasting and merriment, and the 
austere aloofness of their retired squares, with central 
parks high-fenced in iron from contact with the "ordin- 
ary person," is broken by the whirl of the carriages and 
motors of arriving guests. The sudden flood of soft 
lights from the reception hall as Hawkins throws open 
the door, and the quick and noiseless disappearance of 
the conveyances, is all of a moment and our clerk finds 
himself disconsolately gazing at the frowning front 
of some solid, ivy-grown, and altogether charming old 
mansion, through whose carefully-drawn window drap- 
eries only the slightest of beams dares venture forth 
to him. Were he to indulge such a passion for walking 
as characterized Lord Macaulay, — said to have passed 
through every street of London in his day, — he would 
find the same thing in progress at this hour in all the 
exclusive region that lies in the purlieus of Buckingham 
Palace. Dignity, riches, elegance, and power would be 
his in hasty, grudging glimpses — and then the dim 
square again and the high iron fence. The London 
square, indeed, seems decorative only — trees, turf, flow- 
ers, and the fence, and the surrounding houses playing 
dog-in-the-manager. This is not always without its 



196 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

bewilderment to foreigners; and so confirmed a traveler 
as Theophile Gautier puzzled over the matter consider- 
ably before he dismissed it with the conclusion that it is 
probably satisfaction enough to the owners to have 
kept other people out. 

If our clerk were to take the "tube" at Brompton 
Road and come out at Whitechapel Station in the East 
End, he would see the other side of the story with a 
vengeance. To quote Gautier again, "to be poor in 
London is one of the tortures forgotten by Dante." 
Here the air is stifling with dirty dust, and thousands of 
miserable, unkempt creatures with wan and pasty faces 
feed, when they can muster a penny, on a choice of 
"black puddings," pork-pies, "sheep-trotters," or the 
mysterious, smoking "faggots." In old Ratcliffe High- 
way, which is now St. George Street, they make out 
by munching kippers carried in hand as they go their 
devious ways. An occasional stale fish from Billings- 
gate is that much better than nothing. Yiddish seems 
to be the prevailing national tongue east of Aldgate 
Pump, and if you understand it there will be no trouble 
over the signs and announcements. With characteristic 
Hebrew thrift it is always "open season" for buyers. 
Each product has its special habitat. Toys or other 
sweatshop articles come from Houndsditch, shoes from 
Spitalfields, leather goods from Bermondsey, beef rem- 
nants from Smithfield, left-over poultry from Leaden- 
hall, vegetable "seconds" from Covent Garden, birds 



LONDON 197 

are to be had in Club Row, meat and clothing in Brick 
Lane, and a general outfitting in Petticoat Lane which 
the reformers have rechristened Middlesex Street. As 
for a "screw o' baccy" or a "mug o' bitter," the "pub" 
of any corner will answer. The University Settlement 
workers of Toynbee Hall are doing what men can to 
better conditions, but so have others tried for ages — 
yet here is the malodorous East End practically as un- 
washed and unregenerate as of old. The glimpses one 
catches of squalor and filth up narrow passages and of the 
damp and grimy "closes" that remind you of Hogarth's 
drawings are apt to content the most curious, unless he 
be an insatiable investigator, indeed, and is willing to 
take his chances of being "burked." Hand on pocket 
you thread narrow alleys where people are said to have 
been offered attractive bargains on their own watches 
when they reached the other end. Here after the day's 
work is over and the "moke" and barrow safely stabled 
for the night, with a " Wot cher, chummy; 'ow yer 'op- 
pin' up?" our industrious coster friends, 'Arry and 'Ar- 
riet, make merry among pals at a ."Free and Easy," 
or lay out a couple of "thri'-p'ny bits" for seats in a 
local theatre, whence they emerge between acts for a 
"'arf-en'-'arf" or a "pot-o'-porter" with instant and 
painfully frank opinions if " it 'yn't fustryte." Dinner at 
"The Three Nuns," of course, is only for state occasions. 
They are the people, just the same, to get most out of 
Hampstead Heath on a Bank Holiday or a picnic at 



198 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Epping Forest any time. With them originated in days 
gone most of the catchy street-cries for which London 
was long curiously noted. But one hears no more 
" Bellows to Mend ! " or "Three Rows a Penny Pins ! " or 
"Cockles and Mussels, Alive, Alive oh!" or "Sweet 
Blooming Lavender, Six Bunches a Penny!" or "One 
a Penny, two a Penny, Hot Cross Buns ! " or the tradi- 
tional tune of "Buy a Broom!" or the barrow-woman's 
"Ripe Cherries!" and "Green Rushes O!" You may, 
however, have a chance at " 'Taters, all 'ot !" or "Three 
a Penny, Yarmouth Bloaters; 'ere's yer Bloaters!" 
After all, it takes a very limited inspection of the East 
End to wish them all in Hyde Park, as the flag falls at 
seven-thirty, to join the hundreds of men and boys there 
who are out of their clothes before the signal is barely 
given and taking an evening plunge in the Serpentine. 
Between the truffles of Mayfair and the "faggots" 
of Whitechapel lies the region of the menu with which 
the average Londoner is most familiar and which he is 
now exploring with profound earnestness according to 
his lights and shillings. Dining, as every one knows, 
is an important expression of the British conscience, a 
solemn rite of well-nigh religious momentousness. The 
traditional fate of the uninvited guest is his in double 
measure who ventures to intrude between the Briton and 
his beef. One might "try it on," perhaps, on the Surrey 
Side where they incline to "dining from the joint" 
around six o'clock — though nothing short of com- 



LONDON 199 

pulsion should take a sight-seer to South London after 
nightfall. The shabby Southwark shore of dingy- 
wharves and grimy sheds is half concealed in drifting 
shadows raised by the uncertain light of flickering gas 
jets and the net results are not worth the trouble of 
walking London Bridge, unless we except the picture of 
quiet dignity and mellow beauty presented by the an- 
cient church of St. Saviour. This rare old survivor finely 
expresses by night the subtle sense of a long-continued 
veneration and the finger-touches of the passing years. 
And to think that St. Saviour's was doing parish duty 
and was a delight to look upon long before the Globe 
Theatre of Shakespearean fame had reared a neigh- 
boring head ! But the gloom of the Surrey Side is thicker 
and more discomforting than the fog. Long, monoton- 
ous, cheerless streets, poorly lighted and scantily 
employed after dark, emerge from drab perspectives 
of gloaming and fade sullenly away into others. The 
scattered pedestrians one encounters reflect by solemn 
countenance the prevailing depression and seem able 
to take but little heart of courage as they go their 
melancholy ways. The whole region appears given over 
to breweries, potteries, factories, and hospitals. By 
night Lambeth Palace itself takes on the universal 
brewery aspect. You even detect a vatish look to the 
Greenwich Observatory and mistrust some trace of 
beer in the famous meridian. And then the tarry 
hotels of Greenwich must add their quota to the general 



200 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

dejection by offering everything in the world in the 
way of fish excepting its celebrated whitebait, which was, 
of course, the one thing you had come for. The lights 
of St. George's Circus — the Leicester Square of South 
London — may be few in point of fact, but they seem 
highly exhilarating down there; nor are you to scorn the 
good cheer of the comfortable old tavern hard by that 
rejoices in the extraordinary name of "The Elephant 
and Castle." There may also be a kindly feeling for the 
Old Kent Road where Chevalier's coster "knock'd 
'em," but otherwise the breweries win. There is one on 
the sacred site of the old Globe Theatre, something 
like one where stood the Tabard Inn whence Chaucer 
started his immortal Pilgrims for Canterbury, and you 
will find a brazen gin palace if you search for "The 
White Hart Inn," of "Henry VI" and "Pickwick 
Papers." Poor old Southwark! Her glorious days of 
light have passed ! 

"And 'she' shakes 'her' feeble head, 
That it seems as if 'she' said, 
'They are gone.'" 

Even Southwark is not much duller at this hour than 
that ancient nucleus that is still styled the "City." 
Where the leading commercial centres and money mar- 
kets of the world were in frenzied activity, two or three 
hours ago, a few belated pedestrians now "go clattering 
along echoing and deserted streets with an unhappy 
air of apology. No section of London undergoes so 



LONDON 201 

amazing a transformation each day; nor is any other 
so drear and cheerless by the suddenness of contrast 
— attesting the keenness of Lowell's observation that 
nothing makes so much for loneliness as the sense of 
man's departure. There is little dining now in the re- 
gion where Falstaff once reveled at "The Boar's Head" 
and the Shakespearean coterie at "The Mermaid 
Tavern." The low, windowless, stolid Bank of England 
gropes like a blindman toward Wellington on his horse 
before the lofty Corinthian portico of the Royal Ex- 
change, and the massive, sombre Mansion House of the 
Lord Mayor suggests some ruined temple of Paestum. 
" Gog " and " Magog " slumber in the dusty recesses 
of the old Guildhall, and the pigeons nest in its black- 
ened eaves unstartled by the impassioned oratory of 
government ministers at banquets. But it is the time 
of times to attend the sweet chiming of Bow Bells, 
under the dragon in the beautiful tower that Wren 
built for St. Mary's, and one could almost wish to have 
been born cockney if only to have heard them ringing 
from babyhood. The winding and gloomy little streets 
whose names recall so much in the lives of the Eliza- 
bethan literati entice one craftily, like so many Bow 
runners, into the purlieus of the Tower, within the 
shadows of whose momentous walls cabmen drowse 
securely on the boxes of dusty four-wheelers. To the 
imaginative stranger its bright fascination by day suf- 
fers a night-change into something gruesomely repellent, 



202 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

and the " beef -eaters " do not protect the crown jewels 
half so effectively as do the headless shades of Lady 
Jane Grey and Henry's unhappy queens, Anne Boleyn 
and Catherine Howard. Doubtless there are safer 
thoroughfares on earth than Lower Thames Street in 
the early evening, but they would not lead to as divert- 
ing a neighborhood. The wharves and storehouses may 
not be as tumultuous as by day, but the fastidious way- 
farer encounters at Billingsgate enough strength of 
language and odor to satisfy. Tom Bowling is enter- 
taining Black-eyed Susan at some East End "hall," 
but the "pubs" are roaring with "the mariners of Eng- 
land that guard our native seas." Still, cutty-pipes are 
glowing at Wapping Old Stairs, and the heaving tur- 
moil of the shipping in the "Pool," with swaying riding- 
lights dotting the vast tangle of masts and cordage, pre- 
pares you for the shock of the amazing human wave 
that is ever surging with a ceaseless roar across old Lon- 
don Bridge. Caught in the strong current of that billow 
one washes back to Wellington and his horse and drifts 
aimlessly along under the raised awnings of the tailor 
shops of Cheapside, with scarce time for a grateful 
hand-wave to hushed and shadowed St. Augustine's for 
the "Ingoldsby Legends" its former rector gave us, be- 
fore he finds himself high and dry in Paternoster Row 
and the bookish churchyard of St. Paul's. The great 
cathedral is imposing, without doubt, and no one would 
think of saying that Wren did not earn the two hundred 



LONDON 203 

pounds per annum he received during the thirty-five 
years it took him to build it; — and yet it can hardly be 
expected to appear over-cheerful by night, when it is 
chill and gloomy and repellent by day with the sun 
powerless to warm the tessellated floor and stiff, gloomy 
monuments with the brightest colors of its stained-glass 
windows — futile to rival even the moon in that vision 
of Keats as she 

"Threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, 
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, 
And on her silver cross soft amethyst, 
And on her hair a glory, like a saint." 

The moon, however, will aid us now in quickening into 
life the rich memories that adhere to the surrounding 
churchyard and to Paternoster Row, where so many 
generations of authors and publishers in dingy shops 
and inns and coffee-houses have debated the launching 
of immortal books. Every English-published volume 
must still start its race from neighboring Stationers' 
Hall. 

The foolish stranger who chooses such an hour for 
a tramp about the "City" will breathe more freely, 
after he has exorcised the last whimpering shade of 
Newgate and "the poor prisoners of the 'Fleet,'" as 
he hurries along Ludgate Hill and attains unto his 
heart's desire at Fleet Street. Thence on, it is all the 
primrose way. No matter what the hour or season, he 
can never be companionless in the "Highway of Let- 



204 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

ters" for its very excess of material and immaterial 
presences. In its brief and narrow course of a few hun- 
dred yards, the richest in literary associations of any 
region on earth, the weather-beaten, irregular fronts 
of its old stone houses look down affectionately, and 
perhaps pityingly, on hurrying journalists and anxious 
authors, as they have been doing for ages. The lei- 
surely diner of the old school who clings to the mellow 
places of inspiring associations is pretty sure to be going 
along Fleet Street at this time, intent on a chop and 
kidneys and a mug of stout at "The Cock," preferred 
of Tennyson, or a beefsteak-pudding and toby of ale 
at the sand-floored "Cheshire Cheese" palpitant with 
memories of autocratic and snuffy Dr. Johnson ex- 
ploding with "Sirs," of good-natured Goldsmith, 
crotchety Reynolds, impassioned Burke, merry Gar- 
rick, and all the others of that deathless company. 
The usual evening idler and aimless stroller always 
makes Fleet Street a part of his pleasant itinerary, and it 
matters little to him that the sidewalks are narrow and 
the crowd uncomfortably large, when he can beguile 
each yard or two by lingering glances up dim and fas- 
cinating little rookery courts full of mysterious corners 
and deep shadows whose paving-stones have reechoed 
the tread of so many sons of fame. The lights may not 
be as bright nor as numerous as in the Strand, nor the 
shops as attractive, but they are non-existent to the 
sentimentalist who is seeing Izaak Walton in his hosier 



LONDON 205 

shop at the Coventry Lane corner and Richard Love- 
lace in dingy quarters up Gunpowder Alley, and is 
peering wistfully through the arched gateway to the 
Temple for a glimpse of Lamb's birthplace or Fielding's 
home or Goldsmith's grave or a sight of those delight- 
ful "old benchers," brusque "Thomas Coventry," 
methodical "Peter Pierson," and gentle "Samuel 
Salt." Doubtless he is able even to detect the rich aroma 
of the chimney-sweeps' sassafras tea in the neighbor- 
hood of "Mr. Read's shop, on the south side of Fleet 
Street, as thou approachest Bridge Street." 

The shadows fall away with startling suddenness as 
Fleet Street becomes the Strand at Temple Bar. The 
j oiliest uproar of all London storms impetuously along 
that modern Rialto all the way into Trafalgar Square. 
Brilliant lights, shop displays of every description, 
theatres, hotels, and restaurants create a profusion of 
excitement for the gay and jostling crowd that harries 
you perilously near to the curb and the heavy wheels of 
the ponderous busses. 

And what an amazing institution the London bus is ! 
The Strand might still be the Strand if St. Mary's and 
St. Clement Danes were effaced from its roadway, but 
what if the busses went! Gladstone's partiality for these 
archaic contrivances was extreme, which naturally dis- 
posed Disraeli to take the other side and champion 
the fleeting hansom — "the gondola of London," as 
he aptly styled it. And, indeed, much may be said 



206 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

in commendation of the omnipresence, economy, and 
convenience of the latter, and of its friendly way of 
flying to one's aid at the merest raising of the hand to 
whisk you away at breakneck speed and through a 
thousand hairbreadth escapes to any possible destina- 
tion you may indicate. But the majority vote with 
Gladstone, nevertheless, and take their ease on a bus- 
top. It is true that in the profusion of advertising signs 
you may not always be certain whether you are bound 
for Pear's Soap or Sanderson's Mountain Dew, but with 
blissful indifference you pocket the long ticket, and, 
ensconced among the glowing pipe-bowls in the dusk 
of a "garden-seat," "rumble earthquakingly aloft." 
What a delight it is to hear the cockney conductor drawl 
"Chairin' Crauss," "Tot'nh'm Court Rauwd," "S'n 
Jimes-iz Pawk," and the rest of it! From your heaving 
perch beside the ruddy-faced driver in his white high 
hat you observe that your ark keeps turning to the 
left, — the English rule of the road, — and that now 
you must look down instead of up to find the placards 
on the trolley posts that mark the stopping-places of 
the trams. You see belated solicitors and barristers 
hurrying out of the great gray courts of justice, and 
above the heads of the pedestrians you may study the 
gloomy arches of Somerset House or the ornate Lyceum 
where Sir Henry Irving reigned or the neat little Savoy 
where Gilbert and Sullivan won spurs and fortune. It 
is a great satisfaction to look down in comfort on the 



LONDON 207 

elbowing throng you have escaped, with its jostling 
and its stereotyped "I'm sorry," — the top-hats and 
the caps, the actors, bohemians, professional men, tour- 
ists, tramps, beggars, thieves, Tommy Atkins in "pill- 
box" and "swagger," blue-coated and yellow-legged 
boys of Christ's Hospital, red-coated bootblacks, bar- 
maids in turndown collars, well-dressed and shabbily- 
dressed women, as well as that particularly flashy brand 
to whom you return a "Vade retro, Satanus!" to her 
"Come to my arms, my slight acquaintance." No won- 
der when Kipling's "Private Ortheris" went mad of 
the heat in India that he babbled of the Adelphi Arches 
and the Strand! 

In the lull before the turning of the evening tide to- 
ward the opera and the theatre there is opportunity for 
each to indulge his penchant. What the shops of Fleet 
Street and the Strand show in general, the windows of 
specialists elsewhere are presenting in particular and with 
increased elaboration. Regent Street will draw the fan- 
ciers of pictures, leather goods, perfumes, and jewelry; 
Bond Street, rare paintings and choice porcelains; 
Wardour Street, curios and antiques; Stanway Street, 
silver and embroidery; Charing Cross Road, old book- 
stalls; and Hatton Garden, diamonds, — the same 
Hatton Garden that Queen Elizabeth gave a slice of to a 
favorite courtier and threatened the Bishop of Ely in a 
brief but sufficient note to hurry up with the necessary 
details or "I will unfrock you, by God!" This method- 



208 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

ical fashion of grouping certain interests in definite local- 
ities is carried even further; as, for example, should you 
feel the need of a physician it is not necessary to wade 
through the thirty-five hundred pages of Kelly's Post- 
Office Directory, but take a taxi to Harley Street where 
any house can supply you. No matter where you ramble, 
surprises and delights await you. It will be found so to 
those in particular who stroll down Oxford Street — 
with thoughts, perhaps, of De Quincey when a starved 
and homeless little boy groping a timorous and whim- 
pering way down this street as he clutched the hand of 
his new acquaintance; or of Hazlitt's dramatic struggle 
with hunger and poverty — and suddenly, on reaching 
High Holborn, catch their first glimpse of the pictur- 
esque beauty of mediaeval Staple Inn. There are few 
lovelier spots in all London, and the sparrows still chat- 
ter there as clamorously every evening as they did when 
Dr. Johnson frowned up at them from the manuscript 
of "Rasselas," or when Dickens lived and worked there, 
or when Hawthorne visited and revisited it with increas- 
ing delight. 

The princely spaces in the neighborhood of Bucking- 
ham Palace are quite as attractive at this hour as when 
the afternoon sun is warm along fair Piccadilly — 
" radiant and immortal street," said Henley — and the 
gay coaches clatter back toward Trafalgar Square with 
blasts of horn and jangling chains. The Mall, the Grand 
Walk for ages, fairly exhales class and pride in the deep- 



LONDON 209 

ening dusk of the late English twilight. The clubmen of 
Pall Mall and St. James's Street, in their fine, imposing 
old houses, are taking up the question of the evening's 
amusements with as much bored listlessness by the 
aristocrats at Brooks's as rakish enthusiasm by the 
country gentlemen of Boodle's. Signs of approaching 
activity are even to be observed in the stately man- 
sions of exclusive Park Lane — a street that half the 
business men of London hope to be rich enough to live in 
some day ; so effectually has time effaced the memory of 
Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild and the rest of the 
air-dancing specialists who figured here in chains in the 
days when Tyburn Hill was a name to shudder over. 

But the appeal of the "halls," which began when the 
curtains of the Alhambra and the Pavilion went up at 
seven-thirty, grows almost imperative as the hour wears 
around toward eight. The rank of waiting cabs up the 
middle of Hay market is thinned to the merest trickle. 
"Heavy swells" of clubdom and the West End are 
strolling in groups across the wide, statue-dotted ex- 
panse of Trafalgar Square, stopping to scratch matches 
on the lions of Nelson's Column or General Gordon's 
granite base. The artists are forsaking the studios of 
Chelsea, the real bohemians — not the pretenders of the 
Savage Club and the Vagabond dinners — the cheap 
restaurants and the performing monkeys of Soho, the 
students their quiet quarters in Bloomsbury and the 
forty miles of book-shelves of the British Museum, the 



210 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

musicians their Baker Street lodgings up Madame Tus- 
saud's way, the literary people their charming Kensing- 
ton, and even the gay Italians are deserting the organ- 
grinding on Saffron Hill and the disorder of St. Giles — 
and all are rapidly moving on Leicester Square, Picca- 
dilly Circus, and the Strand. There they will view the 
elaborate ballets according to their means; from the 
"pit" for a shilling, or from a grand circle "stall" for 
seven shillings sixpence, with another sixpence to the 
girl usher for a programme loaded with advertisements. 
It is the hour when Pierce Egan would have summoned 
"Tom and Jerry" to be in at the inaugural of the night 
life of the great city, and Colonel Newcome would have 
marched Clive out of the " Cave of Harmony " to hear 
less offensive entertainers at the "halls." It is the time 
Stevenson's "New Arabian Nights" has invested with 
the richest potentiality for adventure, and when, in 
consequence, any polite tobacconist is likely suddenly to 
disclose himself as a reigning sovereign in disguise. 
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, you may be sure, are 
never in their Baker Street lodgings at such a time as 
this. In the preliminary uproar about the bars of the 
favorite cafes and in the flashing of electric signs, glare 
of lights, and rush of hansoms and motors, one may 
discern the beginnings of "a night of it" for many 
whom the early sun will surprise with bleared eyes and 
battered top-hats about the coffee-booths of Covent 
Garden. And, indeed, unless you have access to a club, 



LONDON 211 

night-foraging is a highly difficult undertaking in Lon- 
don. Every restaurant closes down at half an hour 
after midnight; and thereafter, unless you come across a 
chance "luncheon-bar" that defies the authorities, or a 
friendly cabman introduces you to a "shelter," you 
may have to content yourself with a hard-boiled egg at 
a coffee-stall. Many a sturdy Briton trudging along 
behind his linkman could have found better accommo- 
dation two hundred years ago when the watch went by 
with stave and lantern and cried out that it was two 
o'clock and a fine morning. 

With Big Ben in Parliament Watch Tower throwing 
his full thirteen tons into an effort to advise as many 
Londoners as possible that it is eight o'clock at last, and 
with a band concert in progress in the Villiers Street 
Garden of the Embankment, as agreeable a lounging- 
place as one could desire is the beautiful expanse of 
Waterloo Bridge. Not only is the prospect fair and 
inspiring, but the great bridge itself is worthy of it. Said 
Gautier, "It is surely the finest in the world"; said 
Canova, "It is worthy of the Romans." Pallid and 
broad and long, and so level that its double lines of fine 
lights scarcely rise to the slightest of arcs, it rests with 
rare grace on its nine sweeping arches and spans the 
Thames just where the great bend is made to the east. 
One looks along it northward and sees the lamps of 
Wellington Street fade into the blurring dazzle of the 
Strand and Longacre, and southward to find the con- 



212 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

verging lights of Waterloo Road sending a bright arrow 
straight to the heart of Southwark. The greensward 
of the flowered and statued Embankment sweeps across 
and back on either side of its northern end, and palace 
hotels, Somerset House and the huge glass roof of Char- 
ing Cross Station bulk large at hand. Eastward the 
Ionic columns of Blackfriars Bridge and the strutting 
iron arches of Southwark Bridge stalk boldly across the 
serene river, and southwestward the broad arch of 
Westminster Bridge offers Parliament cheer to glum 
Lambeth. It would be the most natural mistake in the 
world to suppose the trim buildings of St. Thomas 
Hospital, on the Surrey bank, a favored row of hand- 
some detached summer villas, with owners of strong 
political influence to be able to build on the fine long 
curve of the Albert Embankment, having no less a vis- 
a-vis than the terraces and glorious Gothic pile of Par- 
liament buildings on their thousand feet of "noblest 
water front in the world." 

Only the mind's eye may look farther on to Chelsea 
and take note of the tall plane-trees of Cheyne Walk, 
and re-people the red brick terraces and homely old 
houses with Sir Thomas More entertaining Erasmus and 
Holbein, with Addison and Steele in revelry at Don 
Saltero's coffee-house, with Byron at home in the amaz- 
ing disorder of Leigh Hunt's cottage, with Tennyson 
smoking long pipes with Carlyle, with Turner and 
Whistler bending over their palettes, and with Rossetti, 





"***>" §- - 



London, st. Paul's from under Waterloo bridge 



LONDON 213 

Swinburne, and Meredith courting the Muses under a 
common roof and in a common brotherhood. 

To the observer on Waterloo Bridge the deep roar of 
the city comes out dulled and subdued. Bells chime 
softly and the whistles of the river-craft sound, from 
time to time, with sudden and startling shrillness. Long 
shafts of light shake out from either bank and spots of 
color from signal lamps dot the nearer rim. All outside 
is a bright dazzle, with patches of deep shadow and 
heavy ripples from the brown-sailed lighters and pert 
steamers that move across the shining reaches. The 
gloomy Southwark shore is blurred and uncertain in 
light mists, and the roof masses of the frowning city lift 
the ghostly fingers of Wren's slender spires and cower 
beneath the indistinct and cloudlike silhouette of the 
dome of St. Paul's. The prospect is that of a vast, con- 
fused expanse of indistinguishable, shadowy blending 
of buildings and foliage whose remoter verges merge 
into a soft violet blur, and over all of it rages a wild 
snowstorm of tiny pin-point lights. Under the arches 
of the bridge old Father Thames moves serenely sea- 
ward, the most ancient and yet ever the youngest mem- 
ber of the community. From his continual renewal of 
life one could believe that in some long-forgotten time 
he had won this reward when he, too, had achieved the 
Holy Grail among the stout knights up Camelot way "in 
the dayes of Vther pendragon when he was kynge of all 
Englond and so regned." With true British reserve he 



214 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

whispers to a stranger no word of such secrets as once 

he confided at this bridge to Dickens, of the savagery 

and cruelty of this London that has driven so many of 

its desperate children to peace within his sheltering 

arms, — 

"Mad with life's history, 
Glad to death's mystery 
Swift to be hurled — 
Anywhere, anywhere, 
Out of the world." 

Looking from one of these bridges on the proud, 
powerful, self-sufficient city, Wordsworth was once 
moved to exclaim that "earth has not anything to show 
more fair." Certainly it has few things to show more 
stirring and impressive, few to move the heart more 
profoundly, few that in achievement, resourcefulness, 
and power embody more completely to men of to-day 
"The grandeur that was Rome." 



NAPLES 

8 P.M. TO 9 P.M. 







~» i 



NAPLES 

8 P.M. TO 9 P.M. 

Drifting lazily of a summer evening over the Bay of 
Naples in a brown old fishing felucca with a friendly 
ancient boatman for companion, careless of time or di- 
rection; the night winds soft; the moon clear; indolent 
boating-parties in joyous relaxation all about; languor- 
ous, plaintive songs of Italy near by and far away; 
Vesuvius glorious and mysterious in the purple offing, 
and the gray old city, touched with silver, beaming down 
from all her crescent hillsides, — here, indeed, is the 
stuff of which day dreams are compounded ! Chimes in 
shadowy belfries take soft, musical notice of the hour; 
and my thoughts recede with those fading echoes and 
retrace the bright and pleasant stages that have led me 
this evening into an environment of such charm and 
romance. 

Thus, then, it was. Two hours ago, as I loitered along 
the crowded Via Caracciolo on the Bay front and 
watched Neapolitan Fashion take the air, I again en- 
countered my Old Man of the Sea at his landing-place, 
— swarthy, wrinkled Luigi of the hoop earrings and 
faded blue trousers rolled to the knees. Little was he 



218 AROUND THE^CLOCK IN EUROPE 

bothering his grizzled head over the frivolity that flut- 
tered above him; and yet it was, in fact, a charming 
show. Old Luigi makes a mistake, in my opinion, in 
ignoring the elegant passeggiata; for afternoon promen- 
ading on the Caracciolo is something that most of 
Naples will do more than lift its head to see. Besides, 
what an attractive setting it has! The boasted park, 
the Villa Nazionale, arrays the western front in a pleas- 
ant old woods of broad and shady trees, along the 
water side of which stretches the handsome boulevard 
of the Caracciolo. The distinguishing mark is thus sup- 
plied to divide society between the carriage set who 
hector it here and along the Villa's winding drives, and 
those lesser lights who venture to raise their heads secure 
from snubs in the promenading spaces under the trees 
and before the cafes and bandstand. With the latter, 
as the elders salute friends, renew acquaintances, and 
exchange civilities with jubilant exclamations, delighted 
shrugs, and storms of exultant gestures, the younger 
men, in flannel suits and foppish canes, flirt desperately 
by twirling their waxed little mustaches, and the snappy- 
eyed signorinas respond in kind by a subtle and discrete 
use of the fan. The contemplative promenader will 
stroll along the cool, statue-lined allees, issuing forth 
from time to time to enjoy the brisk music of the band. 
The hardened idler will take a mean delight in penetrat- 
ing the retired and romantic retreats in the neighbor- 
hood of the Psestum Fountain^and thus arousing whole 



NAPLES 219 

coveys of indignant lovers who have regarded this region 
as peculiarly their own from time immemorial; in the 
event of threatened reprisals the disturber can seek 
sanctuary in the renowned Aquarium, just at hand, and 
there spend his time to better advantage in contemplat- 
ing octopi and sensitive plants, and all sorts of astonish- 
ing fishes. But the real show, of course, is en voiture. 
With a clatter and dash along they come: The jeunesse 
doree, with straw hats cocked rakishly, shouting loudly 
to their horses and sawing desperately on the reins; 
young beauties in the latest word of milliner and modiste 
loll back in handsome victorias, reveling in the sensa- 
tion they are creating, and with great black eyes flashing 
in curious contrast to the studied placidity of their quiet 
faces; consequential senators down from Rome; fat mer- 
chants trying to appear at ease; and all the usual rem- 
nants of the fashionable rout. On the wide sidewalks 
the promenaders proceed leisurely and with more good- 
humored democracy: prim little girls with governesses; 
romping schoolboys in caps of all colors; back-robed 
students; long-haired artisti ; and priests by the score 
strolling sedately and gesturing earnestly with dark, 
nervous hands. 

To all this brave parade Luigi turns a blind eye and a 
deaf ear; but he always manages to see me, I have no- 
ticed. This afternoon his programme was the attractive 
one of a sail down to the Cape of Posilipo for a fish- 
dinner at a rustic little ristoranti y with the table to be 



mo AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

spread under a chestnut-tree on a weathered stone ter- 
race at the water's edge where the spray from an occa- 
sional wave-top could spatter the cloth and I might 
fleck the ashes of my cigar straight down into the Bay. 
This old fellow can interest any one, I believe, when 
he wrinkles up into his insinuating and enthusiastic 
grin and plays that trump card, "And after dinner, if the 
signore wish, we can drift about the Bay or sail over 
toward Capri and Sorrento." Naturally, this is my cue 
to enter. Into the boat I go; off come hat, coat, collar, 
and tie, and up go sleeves to the shoulder. I am allowed 
the tiller, and the genial old fisherman stretches at his 
ease beside the slanting mast and lights a long, black, 
quill-stemmed cheroot. Now for comfort and romance 
and all the delights of Buchanan Read's inspired vision : 

"I heed not if 

My rippling skiff 
Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff; — 

With dreamful eyes 

My spirit lies 
Under the walls of Paradise." 

From all garish distractions our little boat bore us in 
rippling leisure along the picturesque Mergellina front 
and under the long, villa-dotted heights of the Posilipo 
hillside, whose shadows crept slowly out on the waters 
as Apollo drove his flaming chariot beyond the ridge to 
seek the dread Sibyl of Cumse. Nature has always been 
partial to her gay, irresponsible Naples, and this after- 




THE BAY OF NAPLES 



NAPLES 221 

noon she seemed resolved to outdo herself in clothing it 
with charm and beauty. Under the setting sun the entire 
sky over Posilipo became a gorgeous riot of crimson and 
gold, and the opposite Vesuvian shore basked with in- 
dolent Oriental listlessness in a brilliant deluge that pen- 
etrated the deepest recesses of its vineyards and fruited 
terraces. Through this magic realm of richest color we 
floated lightly, silently responsive to the varying phases 
of the calm and glorious sunset hour. In deepest content 

" my hand I trail 
Within the shadow of the sail." 

The region to which we lifted our eyes is one of veritable 
poet-worship. How incredible to think that on this hill- 
side Lucullus has lived and Horace strolled and Virgil 
mused over his deathless verse ! Look again, and under a 
clump of gnarled old trees one sees the latter's venerated 
tomb. Over these waters came the pious iEneas with his 
Trojan galleys to question the Cumsean Sibyl; and since 
the age of fable what fleets of Carthage have passed 
around Cape Miseno, what barks of savage pirates, 
what brazen triremes of Rome, what armadas of Spain 
and navies of all the world ! It staggers the mind to at- 
tempt to recall the scenes of war and pillage that have 
been enacted under the frowning brows of these storied 
hills during the last three thousand years. 

The wonderful sail was all too brief, and almost before 
I was aware the goal was at hand, and I stepped ashore 



%%% AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

at the ristoranti approved of Luigi and entered upon the 
promised joys. It was all as he had predicted; with pos- 
sibly the exception of a few details he had discreetly 
neglected to warn me against. That it required four 
determined efforts and a threat of police to get the 
proper change when I came to settle the bill is really 
no jarring memory at all. It is the usual experience 
with the "forgetful " Neapolitan restaurant keeper. And 
what are foreigners for, anyway? And was it not worth 
something extra to have dined face to face with this 
glittering Bay, with the panorama of Naples on one 
hand and a sunset over Cape Miseno on the other? So 
with many bows and mutual civilities I parted with the 
zealous boniface and rejoined the waiting felucca. A 
light shove, and the shadows of the terrace fell behind us 
and we were out again on the Bay. Such are the alluring 
stages, among others, that may bring one eventually to 
an evening's moonlight sail at Naples. 

Just now the bells rang eight. Luigi grows senti- 
mental. Again he declines my cigars, stretches at his 
ease and produces another quilled specimen of govern- 
ment monopoly such as, when at home, he lights at 
the end of a smouldering rope dangling in a tobacco 
shop of the Mercato. In the gathering gloom one sees 
little now of the trellised paths of Posilipo, the white 
marble villas with their balconies and terraces, or the 
brilliant clustering roses gay against the glossy green of 
groves of lemons and oranges. In the darkness of the 



NAPLES 223 

firs each cavern and grotto of this legend-haunted head- 
land disappears and one can barely make out the wave- 
washed Rock of Virgil, at the farthest extremity, 
where, the Neapolitans will tell you, the poet was wont 
to practice his enchantments. The ruddy sky pales over 
the mouth of Avernus and the Elysian Fields, and Apollo 
abandons us to Diana and the broad flecking of the lights 
of Parthenope. We swing a wide circle in the offing. 
Between us and the distant rim of water-front lamps 
hundreds of light craft are idly floating. Romantic, 
pleasure-loving Naples has dined and taken to the 
water, to cheer its heart with laughter and song. Like 
glowworms the lights of the little boats lift and sway 
with the movement of the waves; while seaward, the 
drifting torches of fishermen flare in search of frutti di 
mare. 

Like an aged beauty Naples is at her best by night, 
when the ravages of time are concealed. Lights glitter 
brightly along the shore line from Posilipo to Sorrento 
and all over the hillsides, and even beyond Sant' Elmo 
and the low white priory of San Martino the pal- 
ace-crowned heights of Capodimonte, where the paper- 
chases of early spring afford so much diversion to the 
young gallants of the court. Popular restaurants up the 
hillsides are marked by groups of colored lights. A 
thick spangle of lamps proclaims the progress of some 
neighborhood festa. The moon is full; the sky brilliant 
with enormous stars. In the distance the curling smoke 



224 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

of Vesuvius glows with a sultry red or fades fitfully into 
gloomy tones, as suits that imperious will which three- 
score of eruptions have rendered absolute. But, as all 
the world knows, this aged beauty of a city that "lights 
up" so well by night is far from "plain" by day. Then 
appears the charm and distinction of the original way 
she has of parting her hair, as it were, with the great 
dividing rocky ridge that runs downward from Capo- 
dimonte to Sant' Elmo and then on to Pizzofalcone, 
"Rock of the Falcon." She even secures a coquettish 
touch in the projecting point, like an antique necklace 
pendant, at the centre of her double-crescented shore, 
where juts a low reef and at its end rests the ancient, 
blackened Castello dell'Ovo, — on a magically supported 
egg, they say, — the accredited theatre of so many ex- 
travagant adventures. And by day she looks down in 
indolent content through the half-closed eyes of ten 
thousand windows and surveys a glorious sea of milky 
blue, brimming tawny curving beaches crowned with 
white villas in luxuriant groves and vineyards, expanding 
in turquoise about soft headlands and dim precipices, 
and bearing, on its smooth, restful bosom in the far, 
faint offing, magical islands of pink and pearl that seem 
no more than tinted clouds. 

A shoal of skiffs hangs under the black hull of a be- 
lated liner, whose rails are crowded with new arrivals 
delighted at so picturesque and enthusiastic a reception, 
and whose silver falls merrily into the inverted um- 



NAPLES 225 

brellas of the boys and girls who are singing and dancing 
in the little boats by the light of flaming torches. Very 
shortly these visitors will learn that the interest they 
excite in Neapolitans is to be measured very strictly 
in terms of ready cash. Secretly, they will be despised. 
There is no smile-hid rapacity comparable with that 
encountered here. The incoming steamer has not yet 
warped into her berth before the Neapolitan has begun 
his campaign for money. Beggars crawl out on the pier 
flaunting their hideous deformities and wailing for 
soldi, and insulting cabmen lie in ambush at' the gates. 
At no other port does a foreigner disembark with so 
much embarrassment. He goes ashore feeling like a 
lamb marked for the shearing, and lives to fulfill the 
expectation with humiliating dispatch. It has to be 
admitted, on the other hand, that the customs-officers 
occasionally catch strange flashes of transmarine in- 
terests that must puzzle them not a little. As an in- 
stance, the first person to land from the steamer I was 
on was a young American athlete in desperate quest 
of the latest daily paper, and bent, as we presumed, 
upon securing instant word of some matter cf great and 
immediate importance. He succeeded; but what was 
our astonishment to behold him a minute later leap and 
shout for joy and announce to every one about him that 
Princeton had again won the Yale baseball series and 
remained the college champions ! 

Naples, to-night, is vibrant with song; faithful to her 



226 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

ancient myth of the nymph Parthenope, whose sweet 
singing long lured men to destruction until Ulysses 
withstood it and the chagrined goddess cast herself into 
the sea and perished and her body floated to these shores. 
Parthenope's children here do not destroy people by 
their singing now, but rather delight and revitalize 
them. Mandolins and guitars are throbbing softly on 
every hand and the old familiar songs of Naples fill the 
air. "Traviata," "Trovatore," and the "Cavalleria" 
reign prime favorites. To be sure, there is no escaping 
the linked sweetness of the wailing "Sa-an-ta-a Lu- 
u-ci-a," nor that notion of perpetual and hilarious 
youth conveyed in the ubiquitous " Funiculi-Funi- 
cola." In martial staccato, as of old, Margarita, the 
love-lorn seamstress, is jestingly warned against Sal- 
vatore, — " Mar-ga-ri, 'e perzo a Salvatore!" — and the 
skittish "Frangese" recites for the millionth time the 
discouraging experience of the giddy young peddler 
who undertook to barter his "pretty pins from Paris" 
in exchange for kisses that would only bring "a farthing 
for five" in Paradise. More than one singer is deploring 
the heartless coquetry of "La Bella Sorrentina," while 
as many more appeal amorously to the charming Maria 
with promises of "beds of roseleaves," — 

"Ah! Maria Mari! 
Quanta suonna che perdo pe te!" 

We take an aesthetic interest in the Pagliaccian ravings 



NAPLES 227 

of Canio, and grieve for the "little frozen hands" of 
"La Boheme"; while, by way of contrast, all the peace 
and serenity of moonlight comes to us in the chaste, 
stately measures of the pensive "Luna Nova." Seren- 
ades seem twice serenades when breathed in the soft, 
lissome dialect of Naples. There is no tiring of the 
impassioned refrain of "Sole Mio": — 

"Man' atusole 

Cchiu bello, ohine, 
'0 sole mio 

Sta nfronte a te!" 

And what sufficient word can be said of the lovely " 'A 
Serenata d' 'e Rrose"? It is impossible not to rejoice 
with these soulful tenors in that 

"The glinting moonbeams look like silver pieces 
Flung down among the roses by the breezes," — 

or to respond to the plaintive intensity of the appealing 

cry: — 

"Oj rrose meje! Si dorme chesta fata 
Scetatela cu chesta serenata! " 

Like old Ulysses, the swift little felucca soon stops its 
ears to these fascinating distractions, and bears Luigi 
and me off into the purple darkness. The prison-capped 
rock of Nisida drops astern with all its august memories 
of Brutus and his devoted Portia, and its repugnant 
ones of Queen Joanna, the very bad, and King Robert, 
the very good. In the moonlit path the distant cliffs of 



228 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Procida, isle of romance and beauty, loom afar, but we 
distinguish no faintest echo of the bewildering taran- 
tella music that is danced there in its perfection. 
What a different spectacle its observers are enjoying 
from the stale perfunctory performances of the Sor- 
rento hotels, which the tourists see at two dollars a 
head. For the tarantella, well done, is the intensest and 
most expressive of dances. All the emotions of the 
lover and his coquettish sweetheart are aptly portrayed 
— the advances, rebuffs, encouragements, slights, and 
final triumph. The Procida dance is a revelation when 
rendered out of sheer delight — con amore, as the 
Italians say. 

An occasional faint light marks dissolute Rome's 
favorite place of revelry, Baise the magnificent. In its 
heyday every house, as we read, was a palace; and it 
has been said that every woman who entered it a 
Penelope came out a Helen. Through their faded green 
blinds no light may be seen in the yellow stone houses 
of neighboring Puteoli where Paul, Timothy, and Luke 
took refuge in the early days of the Faith. Stolid pagan 
Rome had little time for them, considering that Cumse 
was just around the headland, with Daedalus landing 
from his flight from Crete and the frantic Sibyl, at the 
very jaws of Avernus, screaming her "Dies irae! Dies 
ilia!" 

Distant Ischia appears a huge ghostly blot, mysterious 
and solemn. Scarce an outline can be caught of its 



NAPLES 229 

fabled, crag-hung castle, chambered as the very nauti- 
lus and eloquent of the unhappy Vittoria Colonna. How 
often has Michael Angelo climbed with sighs that old 
stone causeway where now the fishermen mend their 
blackened nets ! Ischia never wants for devotees, how- 
ever, and already a quarter-century has sufficed to dull 
the horror of that July night when Casamicciola paid its 
quota of three thousand lives to the dread greed of the 
earthquake. To-day one lingers, undisturbed by such 
memories, amidst the pretty whitewashed cottages set 
in olive groves and vineyards, loiters among the pic- 
turesque straw plaiters of Lacco, or dreams to the 
drowsy tinkle of goat bells in the myrtle and chestnut 
groves on the slopes of Mont' Epomeo. 

Shadowy Capri, isle of enchantment, lies soft and 
dim off the Sorrento headland as we swing our little 
vessel toward the city. It seems only a delightful dream 
that a few mornings ago my dejeuner was served on a 
cool terrace of the Quisisana there, and that I looked 
down over the coffee-urn on olive groves and sloping 
hillsides green with famous vineyards. With joy I relive 
the row around its precipitous shores, the eerie swim in 
the elfland of the Blue Grotto, the drive down the white, 
dusty road from the lofty perch of Anacapri to the 
pebbly beaches of Marina Grande, before a fascinating, 
unfolding panorama of verdant lawns, fruited terraces, 
snowy villas, and bold cliffs crowned with fantastic ruins. 
Sinister Tiberius and his unspeakable companions have 



230 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

small place in our permanent memories of Capri; one is 
more apt to recall the charming blue and white Virgin 
in the cool grotto beside the old Stone Stairs. 

A faint rim of lights on the mainland marks Sorrento, 
and a patch nearer the city, Castellammare; and were 
we nearer, the great white hotels would doubtless be 
found brilliant and musical. Could we but see it now, 
we should find the moonlit statue of Tasso in the little 
square vastly more tolerable than by day, and this 
would be a pleasant hour to spend on the old green 
bench before it absorbed in stirring thoughts of the 
" Gerusalemme Liberata" in the place where its author 
was born. Monte Sant' Angelo looms above Castallam- 
mare spectre-like in night shadows, and the royal 
ilex groves must be taken on faith. The crested hoopoes, 
crowned of King Solomon, have long been asleep on the 
mountain-sides, but Italian Fashion, devoted to its 
Castellammare, having idled and rested all day in the 
bagni, now flirts and dances at the verandaed stabili- 
menti. An occasional faint breath of fragrance recalls 
the floral luxuriance that is so notable here — the 
gorgeous scarlet geraniums, snowy daturas, cactus, and 
aloe, festoons of smilax, and the carmine oleanders 
that they call "St. Joseph's Nosegay." 

Far away to the southeastward, vague and ghostly 
headlands are dimming toward regions of rarest beauty 
— Amalfi, Majori, Cetara, Salerno. In our happy 
thoughts the smooth, white Corniche road lies like a 



NAPLES 231 

delicate thread along the green mountain-sides, — 
those Mountains of the Blest, whose rounded brows 
home the nightingale, whose shoulders are terraces of 
fruits of the tropics and whose storied feet rest eternally 
on white beaches that glisten in the blue waters of a 
matchless bay. A memory this, compounded of pebbly, 
curving shores sweeping around soft, distant headlands; 
lustrous groves of pomegranates and oranges; picturesque 
fishing hamlets of little stone houses nestled away in 
deep, shady inlets; the patter and shuffle of barefooted 
women trotting steadily through the dust under great 
hampers of lemons; sunburned workmen singing home- 
ward through the dusk; the shouts and laughter of bare- 
headed fishermen drawing their red-bottomed boats up 
on the shore; and the low, contented singing of your 
Neapolitan coachman who, as twilight falls, looks long 
and dreamily out to sea and no longer cracks his whip 
over the weary little Barbary ponies that are drawing 
you up the dusty heights toward the cool rose-pergola 
of the Cappuccini. Visitors, reluctantly departing, will 
never forget this land "where summer sings and never 
dies," and must ever after feel with Longfellow: — 

"Sweet the memory is to me 
Of a land beyond the sea, 
Where the waves and mountains meet, 
Where, amid her mulberry -trees, 
Sits Amalfi in the heat, 
Bathing ever her white feet 
In the tideless summer seas." 



232 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

We distinguish Torre Annunciata, abreast of our 
speeding boat, by the evil redolence of its swarming 
fish markets and the boisterous shouting of its many- 
children at mora; and, in striking contrast, one thinks 
of grim Pompeii, farther inland, — "la citta morta," — 
hushed and prostrate in moonlit desolation. At the 
neighboring Torre del Greco we can fancy the coral 
fishers, who may not yet have left for the season's diving 
off Sicily, to be smoking black cheroots along the 
wharves and planning lively times when they market 
their coral and Barbary ponies in November. Certainly 
there is little to suggest the peace that Shelley found 
here. Few shores are more dramatic than those of this 
Vesuvian Campagna Felice. Resina hangs gloomily 
over the entrance to the entombed Herculaneum, and 
Portici lights up but half-heartedly, abashed that all 
her royal Bourbon palaces should now be housing only 
schoolboys. About both villages and for miles inland 
any one may see the wrath of Vesuvius in dismal evi- 
dence in twisted lava rock of weird and sinister shapes. 
But there is a fullness of life on these shores to-night, 
increasing as our boat advances; individual houses 
multiply into villages, and villages overlap into a solid 
mass that is Naples's East End. We pick our way among 
the clustering boats, and around long piers with little 
lighthouses at their ends, and presently Luigi abandons 
his cheroot, stands up by the mast and shouts shrill 
and mysterious hails, and shortly up we come to our 



NAPLES 233 

landing at a flight of dripping stone steps at the tatter- 
demalion Villa del Popolo, sea-gate to the noisiest, 
dirtiest, most crowded (and so most characteristic) sec- 
tion of all Naples. A passing of silver from me, from 
Luigi a twisted smile and a regretful "buon riposo," — 
the last, I fear, that I shall ever hear from him, — and I 
take leave of my amiable companion for the sputtering 
lights and exciting diversions of the swarming Carmine 
Gate and Mercato. From the tide-washed Castello 
dell' Ovo to the prison heights of Sant' Elmo and the 
charming cloisters of San Martino, and from the huts 
of the Mergellina fishermen to far beyond where I am 
standing on the eastern front of the city, all Naples is 
sparkling with lights and humming with an intense and 
multi-phased tumult. 

Lucifer falling from Paradise must have experienced 
some such contrast as those who exchange the serene 
evening beauty of the Bay of Naples for the odors, up- 
roar, and confusion of the Mercato. But does not the 
saying run, "See Naples and die"? And to miss visiting 
so characteristic a district by night is almost to fail to 
see "Naples " at all; though it may, perhaps, appear at 
first glance to assure the " and die." The quay of Santa 
Lucia is the only other section that even attempts to rival 
this in preserving unimpaired the "best" traditions of 
Neapolitan uproar and picturesque squalor. And it 
must be remembered that one's interest in this city is 
like that felt for a pretty, bright, and amiable child 



234 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

who is, at the same time, a very ragged and dirty one. 
Life, as it is found in the Mercato, is exuberance in 
extenso; the most complete conception possible of a 
"much ado about nothing." It is an irrelevant tu- 
mult in which matter-of-fact inconsequences are ex- 
pressed with an incredibly disproportionate use of 
shoulders, fingers, and lungs. An inquiry as to the time 
of day is attended with a violence of gesticulation ade- 
quate to convey the emotions of Othello slaying Desde- 
mona; an observation on the weather involves a pound- 
ing of the table and a wild flourish of arms like the 
expiring agony of an octopus. Even work itself seems 
half play in its accompaniment of romantic posturing, 
eloquent and profuse gestures, and continual over- 
bubbling of merriment, quarrels, and song. All this 
is of the very essence of the Mercato — hopelessly 
tattered and unkempt, artlessly unconscious of its 
picturesque rags, and altogether so frankly frowzy and 
disheveled as to become, upon the whole, positively 
charming. No one equals the Neapolitan in expressing 
the full force of the Scotch proverb, "Little gear the 
less care." 

In appearance the Mercato is a rabbit-warren of tor- 
tuous chasms lined with dowdy structures in every 
advanced stage of decrepitude. Even its lumbering 
churches of Spanish baroque rather add to than detract 
from this effect. No money is squandered on upkeep. 
The cost of initial construction is here like an author's 



NAPLES 235 

definitive edition, — final. Little, cramped balconies, 
innocent of paint, blink under the flapping of reed-made 
shades, shop signs are illegible from dirt and discolora- 
tion, and the weathered house-fronts shed scales of 
plaster as snakes do skins. The very skies are overcast 
with clouds of other people's laundry. Dead walls flame 
with lurid theatre posters, unless warned off by the 
"post-no-bills " sign — the familiar "e vietata l'affis- 
sione." Cheap theatres are completely covered with 
life-size paintings illustrating scenes from the play for 
the week. Lottery signs abound. Certain window 
placards, by their very insistence, eventually become 
familiar and homelike; as, for instance, the "first floor 
to let," the omnipresent "si loca, appartamento grande, 
1° primo," for which one comes in time to look as for a 
face fromhome. Religion contributes a garish and tawdry 
decorative feature in the little gaudy shrines on street 
corners and house-fronts, where, in a sort of shadow box 
covered with glass, candles sputter before painted saints. 
The government monopolies, salt and tobacco, the 
Siamese Twins of Italy, are inseparable with their ever- 
lasting "Sale e Tabacchi" signs and dwell together 
everywhere on a common and friendly footing, like the 
owls, snakes, and prairie dogs in Kansas. 

Curiosity fairly plunges a man into so promising a 
field, and Adventure stalks at his elbow. He finds the 
narrow, squalid streets brimming with a restless, noisy, 
nervous swarm. Picturesque qualities are brought out 



236 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

in the play of feeble street lamps and the dejected, half- 
hearted lights of dingy, cavernous shops and eating- 
places. A comme ilfaut costume for men appears to be 
limited to trousers and shirt, with the latter worn open 
to the belt. The women affect toilettes of a general 
dirty disarray which their laudable interest in the life 
around frequently leads them absent-mindedly to ar- 
range in the quasi-retirement of the doorways, the front 
sill itself being reserved for the popular diversion of 
combing the hair of their spawn of half -naked children. 
To traverse an alley and avoid stepping on some rol- 
licking youngster in purls naturalibus is vigorous exer- 
cise of the value of a calisthenic drill. Still, it is possible 
to escape the babies, but scarcely the fakirs and beggars. 
The fakir has odds and ends of everything to sell and 
teases for patronage for love of all the saints; one even 
awaits the Oriental announcement, "In the name of 
the Prophet, figs!" The beggars, of course, are worse; 
crawling across your path and dragging themselves 
after you to display their physical damages, often self- 
inflicted, in quest of a soldo of sympathy. Express com- 
passion in other than monetary terms and you get it 
back instanter, along with a dazing assortment of 
vitriolic maledictions. As the visitor's patience gives 
way under the strain, it presently becomes a very pretty 
question as to whose language is the most horrific, his 
own or the beggar's. 

Women dodge through the streets carrying great 



NAPLES 237 

bundles on their heads, and pause from time to time for 
friendly greetings with frowzy acquaintances tilting out 
of the upper windows where the laundry hangs. It is 
from these mysterious upper windows that the housewife 
in the morning lowers a pail and a bit of money wrapped 
in a piece of newspaper, and bargains with the leather- 
lunged padulano when he comes loafing along beside his 
panniered donkey, crying his wares in that "carrying 
voice" we all admire in our opera singers. Those are 
the hours of trying domestic exaction, when the woman 
who does not care for water in the milk watches the 
production of the raw material with the cow standing 
at the doorway, or from the frolicsome goat that nimbly 
ascends every flight of stairs to the very portal of the 
combined kitchen and sleeping-room. But just now 
neighbors are shouting conversations in those same 
upper windows, or calling down to the women and girls 
who go shuffling along on the lava pavement below in 
wooden sabots that look like bath-slippers — if, indeed, 
one has imagination enough to think of bath-slippers in 
this vicinity. 

Restless activity prevails. The most unnatural things 
are the statues, chiefly because they do not move. One 
catches glimpses of them now and then in the niches of 
the motley-marbled churches, — churches of memories 
grave and gay, of Boccaccio's first glimpse of Fiammetta, 
or the slaying of the young fisherman-tribune, Masa- 
niello, whom Salvator Rosa delighted to paint. There 



238 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

is buying and selling, eating and drinking. There are 
fruit stands and lemonade stalls and macaroni stores 
and dejected little shops with festoons of vegetables 
pendent from the smoky ceilings over whose home- 
painted counters weary women await custom with babies 
in their arms. A brisk demand prevails for the famous 
cheese-flavored biscuit called "pizza," set with little 
powdered fish, and those who desire can have a slice 
of devilfish-tentacle for a soldo, which the purchaser 
dips in the kettle of hot water and devours on the spot. 
Should this latter fare disagree with any one, there will 
be access on the morrow to the miracle-working "La 
Bruna " — the picture of the Virgin in the church of 
St. Mary of the Carmine — which every child in Naples 
knows was painted by St. Luke; and if that should fail, 
there is still the liquefying blood of St. Januarius in 
the inner shrine of the cathedral. 

Happily, the senses are more than four; and when 
seeing, smelling, tasting, and feeling fail from over-exer- 
tion in the Mercato, still hearing remains, so that one 
may study the Sicilian-like prattle of the Neapolitan 
in all its ramifications from a whisper to a shriek. The 
character of the man is expressed along with it; and thus 
one observes that while a Piedmontese may be steady 
and industrious, a Venetian gossipy and artistic, a 
Tuscan reserved and frugal, and a Roman proud and 
lordly, the Neapolitan is merry, loquacious, generous, 
quarrelsome, superstitious, and, too frequently, vicious. 



NAPLES 239 

Thus the Mafia flourishes with him, and the Camorra, 
an unbegrudged possession, is wholly his own. His 
vendetta may, perhaps, be mildly defended on the ground 
that it is, at least, only a personal affair, and certainly less 
foolish and reprehensible than the perennial jealousy of 
an entire people, as, for example, the ancient feud 
between Florence and Siena, where an inherited an- 
tagonism is still devoutly cherished and the old battle 
of Montaperti refought with fury every morning. The 
Neapolitan had rather spend that time on the lottery, 
dream his lucky numbers, look them up in his dream- 
book, and go to the Saturday afternoon drawings with 
a fresh and stimulating interest in life. 

It is a nice question whether the Mercato loves sing- 
ing best, or eating — when it can get it. At night one 
inclines to the latter view. There is a prodigious hub- 
bub around all the open-air cooking-stoves and in every 
smoky trattoria and family eating-place. One would 
scarcely hazard an opinion as to the number of bowls of 
macaroni, quantities of polenta, and whole nations of 
snails and frogs that are being devoured between appre- 
ciative gestures and puffs of cigarettes, and washed down 
unctiously with minestra soup and watery wines. But 
as all these good people have probably breakfasted solely 
on dry bread and black coffee, no one would think of 
begrudging them the delight they are taking in dining 
so gayly and at so modest an outlay. If stricter economy 
becomes necessary later, they will patronize the charity 



240 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

"kitchens," where soup, vegetables, meat, and wine 
are supplied at cost, or perhaps some friend will give 
them a voucher and they will be able to get it all for 
nothing. 

So far as economy is concerned, they know all there 
is to be learned on the subject. Several families of them 
will live in a single room; and when that room is the 
damp, foul cellar they call fondaco, it is something one 
does not care to think of a second time. When they in- 
dulge in street-car riding they never neglect to take the 
middle seats, because they are the cheapest. They know 
all about the market for restaurant scraps and cigar 
stumps, where quotations are governed by length. 

Their extraordinary generosity to one another in 
times of distress is almost proverbial. Misery both fas- 
cinates and touches them, perhaps because it is never 
very far from their own doors. One morning I shoul- 
dered my way into the middle of a strangely silent crowd 
and found there a weeping crockery vender whose entire 
stock in trade had been demolished by some mishap. It 
meant his temporary ruin, as could be seen from the faces 
of the painfully silent and sympathetic audience. The 
peddler seemed utterly stunned by his misfortune and 
lay on the ground with his face in his arms. How touch- 
ing it was to see the little cup that some one had signifi- 
cantly set beside him, and to know that every copper- 
piece that fell into it came from Poverty's Very Self, 
and bore the message, "It's hard, poor fellow; we 



NAPLES 241 

know how hard; but here's a little something — try- 
again." 

But, as Thomas Hardy's peasants say, it is time to go 
"home-along." Emerging from the noisy congestion of 
the Mercato the quiet and cool of the water front is 
rather more than refreshing. The shipping along the 
Strada Nuova stands out stately and picturesque, sil- 
vered toward the moon and black in the dense shadows. 
Harbor lights sparkle brightly under the solemn eye 
of the molo lighthouse. The military pier points a long, 
black finger warningly toward Vesuvius. Along the 
Strada del Piliero one has pleasant choice of viewing 
on the left the animated steamer piers and the secure 
anchorage where the great ships for Marseilles and the 
Orient tug mildly at their hawsers, or seeing on the right 
the ceaseless activity of swarming little streets, some 
glowing in arbors of colored lights in celebration of a 
neighborhood festa and others observing a milder form 
of the same noisy programme we have just forsaken. 
On the broad Piazza del Municipio the massive and 
heavy-towered Castello Nuovo rears a sombre and 
storied front; and farther along we pass the vast gray 
bulk of the famous Teatro San Carlo and the lofty 
crossed-arcade of the Galleria Umberto I, and skirting 
the corner of the Royal Palace enter the broad and 
brilliant Piazza del Publiscito. 

Contrasts again! What a different crowd from that 
of the poor Mercato. Here is a groomed and well-con- 



242 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

ducted multitude that has come out to enjoy its coffee 
and cigarettes as it listens to the band in the pavilion 
on the western side or the open-air melodrama in that 
on the east. And what a change in surroundings ! Pal- 
aces and splendid churches and public buildings, now. 
Solemn effigies of departed kings stare stonily down from 
niches in the moonlit facades. A fringe of dark-eyed 
boys lounges in indolent content around the coping of a 
fountain. Hundreds of chairs and tables throng the open 
space, and we gladly rest on one of them and experiment 
with Nocera and lemon juice, preparatory to a good- 
night stroll up the Toledo. Enthusiasm prevails here, 
too. Familiar melodies from the old operas are wel- 
comed with storms of applause and shouts of "Bravo" 
or " Bis " ; whereupon the conductor bows profound grati- 
fication and selects the music for the next number with 
a face glowing with pride. Politeness abounds. The air 
is gracious with "grazie," and like expressions of cour- 
tesy. Ask a light for your cigar, and the Neapolitan 
raises his hat and thanks you, supplies the match, raises 
his hat and thanks you again, though all the while he has 
been doing the service. Indeed, he seems capable of 
expressing more civility by a touch of the hat than we 
can by completely doffing ours. One looks about and 
concludes that the women are not particularly pretty 
and that good dressing is a lost art with them. The men, 
as a rule, impress one more favorably; though they are 
perversely inclined to spoil their good looks by waxing 



NAPLES 243 

their mustaches to a needle-point and trimming their 
long beards square, like bas-reliefs of Assyrian kings. 

It is nearly nine o'clock. I settle for my drink, leave 
the usual centesimi with the bowing waiter, and plunge 
into the Broadway of Naples, the renowned Toledo. 
Its map-name is Via Roma, but the "Toledo" it has 
been for ages and as such it will remain to many Neapol- 
itans to the end of time. It is a busy and peculiar 
street. Rows of raised awnings in two long, converging 
lines dress the feet of tall, dark buildings that are studded 
with shallow iron balconies filled with pots of flowers. 
It is comparatively narrow and with sadly straitened 
sidewalks, but no street in Naples is so long or so con- 
tinually used; if it is followed, through all its changes 
of names, it will carry one past the Museo and away 
up to the very doors of the summer palace at Capodi- 
monte, running due north all the way. Shops of all 
descriptions line it, and it is thronged to the overflow of 
the sidewalks and the hysterical abuse of distracted 
cabmen in the middle of the street. One thinks of 
Paris when he sees the newspaper kiosks and the many 
bright little stands decked out with fruit and gay trifles. 
The shops satisfy any taste and any purse, for it is the 
common gathering-ground of Naples. 

It is vastly diverting to step aside and take note of 
the varieties of people that troop along this brilliant 
highway. One sees jaunty naval cadets from Leg- 
horn; street dandies in white duck and tilted Panamas; 



244 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

delivery boys in long blue blouses; tattered and bare- 
headed bootblacks, with sleeves rolled up in business 
fashion; artisti in greasy coats; minor government offic- 
ials in spectacles and rusty black, trying to be rakish 
on four hundred dollars a year; sub-lieutenants, with 
their month's thirty dollars in hand, off to lose it at 
cards at some circolo; swarthy contadini, the farmer 
"Rubes" of Italy, having disposed of their poultry and 
their wives' straw plaiting, are here "doing the town"; 
groups of impoverished laborers from near-by estates, 
lamenting with despairing gestures the impending fail- 
ure of the olive crop and charging it to ghosts and the 
evil eye; venders of coral and tortoise shell; resplendent 
Carabinieri in pairs, fanning themselves with their pic- 
turesque chapeaux; thrifty policemen pursuing street 
peddlers, with an eye to a per centum of the fines; 
heroic school-ma'ams, trying to forget that their miser- 
able one hundred and fifty dollars per annum is not 
likely to save them from such distress as De Amicis tells 
of in his impressive "Romanzo d' un Mestro"; that odd 
military rara avis, the Bersagliero, pruning his glossy 
feathers and looking quite equal to a trot to Posilipo 
and back; rioting students, still unreconciled to having 
been "ploughed" at the recent examinations, or having 
failed of the coveted laurea degree when, frock-coated 
and nervous, they discussed their theses unsuccessfully 
before the jury of examiners; the pompous syndic of 
some commune; priests in black cassocks and fuzzy, 



NAPLES 245 

broad-brimmed hats; some prefect returning from a 
many-coursed dinner, intent upon political coups when 
the Government's candidates come up for election; and, 
most dejected and dangerous of all, the unemployed 
men of education, the spostati, who will hunt govern- 
ment jobs while there is any hope and then turn Social- 
ists in Lombardy or Camorristi in Naples. 

All along the way the soda fountains are sputtering 
and the " American Bars" bustling. Bookstores fascin- 
ate here, as everywhere, and shining leather volumes 
cry out for attention in the names of D' Annunzio, De 
Amicis, Verga, and Fogazzaro. "IlTrionfo della Morta" 
lifts its slimy head on every counter, side by side with 
the breezy Neapolitan stories of Signora Serao. I always 
look curiously, but so far unsuccessfully, to find a single 
bookstore window that does not contain that national 
family table ornament, the "I Promessi Sposi" of 
Manzoni — the man for whom Verdi composed the 
immortal Requiem Mass. 

The Toledo tide runs northward for twenty blocks or 
so from where we entered it, swings around the marble 
statue of Dante in the poet's piazza, and sets south 
again. At nine o'clock it begins to diverge into the 
Strada di Chiaja, where there is music and promenading 
until midnight. 

Detecting this hint of the hour, I hail a venerable, 
loose-jointed cab and bargain to be taken to my great, 
sepulchral, marble-floored room on the Corso Vittorio 



246 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Emmanuele. Now, cabs are cheap in Naples — after 
you have paid a penalty of extortion for the first few 
days* experience; the real expense concerns the tailor as 
much as the cabman, in wear and tear to clothing, try- 
ing to keep on the seat as you bounce along over these 
volcanic-block pavements. This evening the cabman 
starts the usual trouble by demanding threefold the 
legal fare, and as we work it down to the tariff rate he 
insults me pleasantly and volubly, and I try to do as 
well by him. At length we arrive at a quasi-satisfactory 
basis; he shrugs contemptuous acceptance of my terms 
and I relax to the point of conceding that his ponies 
are only a little worse-groomed than the average and 
have, as far as I can see, all the mountainous brass 
fixtures prescribed by custom, along with the coral horn 
that will save me from the evil eye. So in I clamber. 
There is an infantry volley of whip-cracking and a burst 
of wild invective at the obstructing crowd and my head 
snaps back with sufficient force to keep me quiet to the 
journey's end. 

On the pleasant little balcony of my room I dare not 
linger long to-night. Well I know the busy programme 
of the departure on the morrow. There will be a hurried 
stop for one last hasty look into the Museo, with my 
luggage on the waiting cab outside; then, at my urgent 
"Fa presto," some reckless Jehu will rattle me over the 
stones to the station; I will go down into my pocket 
again, in the old familiar way, for seventy centesimi and 



NAPLES 247 

an additional pourboire to the cabby; and twenty more 
for the spry old porter who will shoulder my grips into 
the smoker; and the conductor will blow a horn, and the 
station bell will ring, and the engineer will blow a whistle, 
— in their rare Italian manner, — and the wheels will 
begin to squeak and groan, and I shall be off for Rome. 
And that is why a cigar lacks its usual solace on my 
balcony to-night; the last I am to smoke in Good Night 
to this fascinating city. The subdued hum of cheery, 
happy revelry, mingled with music and song, drifts up 
from the bright squares and animated streets. The 
minutes multiply as I dwell over the varying phases of 
old Vesuvius, or gaze long and lingeringly over the star- 
lit Bay and all the romantic playground of these grown- 
up children. One cannot bring himself to say a definite 
farewell to this beautiful Region of Re visitors. With a 
yearning hope of returning some other day, he moder- 
ates it to a heartfelt Good Night and a tentative "till we 
meet again": — 

"A rivederci, Napoli! Benedicite e buon riposo!" 



HEIDELBERG 



9 P.M. TO 10 P.M. 




HEIDELBERG 

9 P.M. TO 10 P.M. 

There stands an ancient castle 
On yonder mountain height. 
Where, fenced with door and portal. 
Once tarried steed and knight. 

But gone are door and portal, 
And all is hushed and still; 
O'er ruined wall and rafter 
I clamber as I will. 

Goethe's " Castle on the Mountain." 

When the sun has gone down behind the Blue Alsatian 
Mountains and the last stain of color has faded from the 
skies of the Rhenish plain, when clock tower has an- 
swered clock tower and evening bell responded to even- 
ing bell from the mountain streams and mill wheels of 
the Odenwald to the busy squares of Mannheim, then 
the quiet and gentle valley of the Neckar takes on a 
peculiar peace and glory that is exquisite and marvel- 
ous, and Heidelberg and its lordly ruins seem set in a 
veritable fairy-ring of delicate charm and beauty. So 
tranquil and lovely is this region in the early evening 
that even the latest comer soon feels a comforting sense 
of having turned aside from out of the rush and fever of 



252 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

life into a singularly placid and protected corner of 
earth, a hushed and happy Vale of Tempe. This sense of 
rest and seclusion is one of Heidelberg's strongest appeals 
— and her appeals, though few, are all emphatic. For 
there are no "sights" here, the castle excepted. The 
quaint old town is friendly and genial, though not more 
so than many others of this comfortable German father- 
land; nor is the serene Neckar so exceptional as to occa- 
sion pilgrimage. 

Heidelberg's appeals are to the mind, the heart, and 
the senses: the mind is inspired by her impressive 
achievements in learning; the heart is touched by her 
tragic history; and the senses are spellbound by the 
exceptional charm of her natural beauty. She is never 
so fair as in the early evening. With the soft fall of 
night each blemish fades away, and what remains to 
see and feel is altogether rare and lovely. 

When the valley clocks are booming nine with 
muffled strokes it is delightful to be up in the castle's 
ruins, lounging on the Great Balcony of the crumbling 
Friedrich Palace, with a broad coping for a seat and 
the rustling ivy of the hollow walls for a pillow. Behind 
and about one is the vast, ruddy wreckage of the knightly 
halls and towers of this far-famed "Alhambra of Ger- 
many," and fluttering plains of tree-tops are billowing 
upward on every hand to the dark heights of the Konigs- 
stuhl. On the opposite side of the valley, across the 
river, dense forests of oak and chestnut glitter in the 




HEIDELBERG, FROM THE CASTLE TERRACE 



HEIDELBERG 253 

moonlight, sweeping aloft to the summit of the storied 
Saints' Mountain. Just below our balcony the clustered 
spires and steep roofs of the huddled old town house their 
fifty thousand happy people between the wooded hillsides 
and the shimmering Neckar that bands the middle dis- 
tance, on its placid Rhine journey, like a silver ribbon 
on a velvet cloak. In its bright waters hills and trees are 
luminously mirrored, along with the inky, motionless 
shadows of its bridges and the sober reflections of shut- 
tered house-fronts along its verge. 

In the dewy coolness and still of evening the guardian 
oaks breathe a recurrent lullaby — now softly agitated, 
now as hushed and ghostly and motionless as the hills 
in which they are rooted ; and one understands how such 
a soothing environment could have softened even the 
impetuous, fiery, war-loving young Korner to indite 
so gentle a benediction as his beautiful" Good Night" : — 

"Goodnight! 
To each weary, toilworn wight, 
Now the day so sweetly closes, 
Every aching brow reposes 
Peacefully till morning light. 
Good night. 

"Home to rest! 
Close the eye and calm the breast; 
Stillness through the streets is stealing, 
And the watchman's horn is pealing, 
And the Night calls softly 'Haste! 
Home to rest!'" 



254 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Up in the castle ruins one is seldom alone before mid- 
night, and not even then if the melancholy spectre of 
Rupert's Tower is disposed to walk abroad. In the early 
evening the good people of Heidelberg, kindliest and 
most contented of Germans, stroll with vast delight 
under the lindens of the castle gardens, and groups of 
careless students loiter merrily along the terraces, add- 
ing bright touches of color with their peaked caps and 
broad corps ribbons. Bits of song and bursts of laughter 
give a homely suggestion of habitation to these staring 
walls; one could fancy the dead-and-gone old nobles at 
wassail again, with minstrels in the banquet hall, and 
Perkeo, the jester, whispering jokes in the ear of the 
Count Palatine. 

"Under the tree-tops," sang Goethe, "is quiet now." 
There is a low sad sound of night breeze in the ivy; a 
swallow darts through a paneless window; a bat zig- 
zags among the echoing arches of a tower. Like phan- 
tom sentinels the stone statues of the old electors stand 
white and impressive in niches on the palace fronts. 
Fragrance of flowers drifts in from the castle gardens and 
the delicate plash of falling water comes from a ter- 
race fountain. The lamps of the city rim the river below, 
and villas beyond the farther bank are marked by tiny 
dots of lights in the purple of the groves behind Neuen- 
heim. Across the Neckar-cut gulf of shadow the chest- 
nut-crowned summit of the Heiligenberg stares down 
solemnly at us, and not all the songs of its blithest 



HEIDELBERG 255 

nightingales can banish thoughts of its ancient Roman 
sacrifices nor divert the credulous from vigils over the 
blue grave lights around the Benedictine cloister where 
they buried the sainted Abbot of Hirschau. Up through 
the dark billows of this tree-top ocean rises a strain of 
Wagner's music from some cheery, hidden woodland 
inn — and under the magic spell of the night one could 
fancy the golden-haired Siegfried approaching on a new 
Rhine Journey, following the winding Neckar up the 
broad Rhenish plain; the Tarnhelm is at his belt, the 
World-Warder Ring on his finger, and the moonlight 
flashes dreadfully from the glittering blade of "Nothung" 
as the hero's horn winds note of arrival under the walls 
of our stout castle! 

It is especially at such an hour as this that one realizes 
how easy it is for the man who thoroughly knows Heidel- 
berg to acknowledge a delightful and lifelong bondage. 
A large number of the most eminent literati of the world 
have agreed in this. Goethe ascribed to her "ideal 
beauty." Macaulay pronounced her environment "one 
of the fairest regions of Europe." The father of Ger- 
man poetry, Martin Opitz, loved her dearly in his stud- 
ent days here, three centuries ago, and wrote affec- 
tionately of her all the rest of his life. The prolific Tieck 
found time between novels to lament the destruction of 
a few of her oaks. Alois Schreiber turned from his poetry 
and history to grieve over the loss of a lime-tree. Von 
Scheffel praised her in prose and verse and hailed her 



256 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

in seven songs of his " Gaudeamus." La Fontaine could 
not conceive of more ideal surroundings in which to re- 
unite his" Clara du Plessis"and her devoted " Clairant." 
G. P. R. James, in his favorite romance "Heidelberg," 
wrought prodigies of sentimentality here with the heroic 
"Algernon Grey" and the emotional "Agnes." Mat- 
thisson immortalized himself by his "Elegie" in these 
ruins. All who have read Alexandre Dumas's dramatic 
"Crimes Celebres" will recall the young fanatic, Karl 
Ludwig Sand, and his assassination of the poet, Kotze- 
bue, in our neighboring city of Mannheim, but they 
may not have heard of how Kotzebue once said: "If an 
unhappy individual were to ask me what spot to live 
in to get rid of the cares and sorrows which pursue him, 
I should say Heidelberg; and a happy one asks me what 
spot he would choose to adorn with fresh wreaths the 
joys of his life, I should still say Heidelberg." 

Goethe loved the Neckar, and scarcely less its famous 
old bridge. In an interpretative mood he once ob- 
served, "The bridge shows itself in such beauty as is 
perhaps not to be equaled by any other in the world." 
And, indeed, it is an easy thing to divide enthusiasm be- 
tween bridge and river. Nothing is jollier than loafing 
against the broad balustrades of this solid old veteran, 
as the students love to do, and lazily take note of the 
river's tinted reflections, the ripple and eddy about the 
piers, the mirroring of the arches in perfect reverse, and 
watch the deep green shadows of the hills creep out and 



HEIDELBERG 257 

steal across. Great rafts come downstream laden with 
the output of the Odenwald and Black Forest, and swift 
steamers hurry under the massive arches bound up- 
stream for the mountain towns or downward to Mann- 
heim. Ferries ply beside it, fishermen drift beneath it, 
and throngs of townspeople and countrymen stroll 
along it, with now and then a be-petticoated peasant 
girl from the Odenwald whose fair hair is hidden under 
a huge black coif. How redolent it is of Rhenish life! 
One lingers beside the great statue of its builder, the 
old Elector, and gazes with unwearying satisfaction 
on the strange mediseval gateway, loopholed and port- 
cullised, and wonders where two other such queer round 
towers can be found with such odd bell-shaped capitals 
and such slender little spires. Terrible and tragic expe- 
riences have befallen this sturdy old hero, and its an- 
tique towers are pitted from the riddling of French and 
Swedish and German bullets. Fire has swept it, can- 
non shaken it, floods grappled with it, and blood drenched 
it from shore to shore. Wan processions of famine- 
stricken people have dragged themselves across its 
paving-stones, and its gateways have reechoed with 
groans and prayers and curses. To-night we see it as de- 
fiant as ever, battle-scarred and unshaken, with "head 
bloody but unbowed," striding its river with broad and 
shapely arches — as real a part of Heidelberg as the 
very hills above it. 

One looks down from the castle on the twinkling 



258 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

lights of the cramped old town, and notes how it has 
ambitiously spread its suburbs even beyond the opposite 
bank and that its villa-lamps sprinkle their way in the 
distance toward that little hamlet with the great 
mouthful of a name, — Handschuhsheim, — in the hills. 
It is there, could we see it, that the tumbledown hut 
stands that sheltered Luther when he escaped from the 
"Tile-Devils" of Worms; at a sight of it one wonders 
if he did not exclaim here as he did at the Diet: "Here 
I take my stand. I can do no otherwise. God help me ! " 
In Heidelberg itself, the shops of that one long street, 
Hauptstrasse, send up a wavering, crooked path of 
softened light, but the more elegant Anlage is discreetly 
reserved with all its hotels and imposing homes. One 
distinguishes little at this hour of the peaked tile roofs 
and faded shutters of the venerable town — the little 
awninged shops, sombre cafes, Stuben, and restaurants; 
or the excited appearance of an occasional side street 
that starts with all enthusiasm at the river, loses heart 
in a block or two, and comes suddenly to a discouraged 
end in a tangle of trees and forest paths. We only know 
that Emperor William I canters his bronze steed with 
its capacious girth along the middle of Ludwigs- 
Platz right up to the university building where the 
celebrated professors have their "readings" before their 
frisky young "Meine Herren"; and that the market- 
place is probably as shabby and gloomy as usual, and 
the Kornmarkt subsided again to its customary list- 



HEIDELBERG 259 

lessness since the last of the evening crowds have taken 
the mountain railroads there for cool trips to the Konigs- 
stuhl or the Molkenkur or for a trout dinner at the 
distant Wolfsbrunnen. 

Out of this cramped nest of roofs the shadowy Gothic 
tower of St. Peter's Church rises boldly, challenging 
beholders to forget — if they can — how Jerome of 
Prague once nailed his theses on its doors and defended 
them before excited multitudes; calling, besides, on the 
distant and indifferent to sometimes have a thought of 
the famous university scholars who lie under the weeping- 
willows of its churchyard. A neighboring bidder for 
consideration, the famous Heilig-Geistkirche, thrusts 
a lofty spire skyward above the dark tree-tops until its 
weather vane is almost on a level with our feet. There is 
little need for this ecclesiastic to feel any apprehension 
on the score of being forgotten, so renowned has it been 
for half a thousand years as once the foremost cathedral 
of the Palatinate, celebrated for richness of endowment, 
extent of revenues, the beauty of its art treasures, and 
the learning of its prebendaries. As it appeals to us to- 
night it is as one fallen far from its former high estate, 
and yet the very eagles that soar over Heidelberg must 
have enough knowledge of religious controversy to re- 
call its past amusing dilemmas of divided orthodoxy. 
The stranger in the castle ruins will smile as he thinks 
of what he has read of the days when both Protestants 
and Catholics worshiped there at one and the same 



260 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

time, through the effective device of a partition wall 
thrown up to separate choir from nave. The elaborate 
Catholic ceremonials of the altar necessitated the re- 
servation of the choir for them, while the Protestants 
got along very nicely with a pulpit built in the end of 
the nave. What unusual entertainment might have 
been contrived by neutrals to the controversy had a 
brick or two been removed from the partition wall and 
an ear applied alternately to either service! On one 
side, Ave Marias and Pater Nosters — on the other, 
hymns of the Lutherans; here, the wailing Confiteor 
and the penitential breast-beating of mea culpa — there, 
grim scorn of all ritual and ceremony; in the choir, 
the intoning of versicle and response, reiterations of 
"Dominus Vobiscum" and "Et cum Spiritu tuo" the 
solemn Tantum Ergo, the passionate Agnus Dei, and 
the triple sound of the acolyte's bell as the Host is elev- 
ated above the kneeling, praying throngs — in the 
nave, a rapt absorption in the new significance of old 
truths, and lengthy discourses by stern and ascetic 
expounders; for one congregation, a glittering altar, 
sacred images, flaming candles, and a jeweled monstrance 
— stiff pews and a painted pulpit, for the other; for 
the Catholics, flocks of priests and choir boys, deacons 
and subdeacons, sumptuously vested in alb and stole 
and gorgeous chasuble — for the Protestants, one solemn 
man in black. Neutrals at the dividing wall could have 
rendered both congregations a service by loosening a 



HEIDELBERG 261 

brick or two and letting a little incense and beauty pass 
to the Dissenters' side, and some word of wisdom con- 
cerning a release from dogma get through to the 
Catholics. Had America's new policy of church unity 
existed then, it would have advocated doing away with 
the wall altogether and finding some compromise for 
approaching a common God in a common way. Time, 
the great umpire, has settled the contest as a draw; for 
the partition wall has come out and the rival camps 
with it: the present occupants are "Old Catholics" — 
a sect with which either side has little sympathy and 
less patience. 

The evening lounger in the old castle will doubtless 
have more than one thought of the famous seat of 
learning that has, for five and a quarter centuries, in- 
vested the name of Heidelberg with so much lustre and 
glory. He will, of course, have heard it called the "cradle 
of Germanic science," and will have been told that of all 
Germanic universities only those at Prague and Vienna 
are older than this. He can form some conclusion as to 
its rich contributions to human knowledge by merely 
recalling the names of its famous scholars, — Reuchlin, 
Melanchthon, Ursinus, Voss, Helmholtz, Bunsen, Kuno 
Fischer, and the rest, — and will gauge its present stand- 
ing by the acknowledged eminence of its faculties in 
medicine, law, and philosophy. One thinks of its long 
eras of philosophic speculation, always deeply earnest 
if not invariably profitable, and applauds the force of 



262 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Longfellow's simile in "Hyperion" when he compared 
them to roads in our Western forests that are broad and 
pleasant at first, but eventually dwindle to a squirrel- 
track and run up a tree. If the loiterer be a Presby- 
terian, he will want to acknowledge indebtedness to old 
Ursinus for that celebrated "Heidelberg Catechism" of 
three hundred and fifty years ago that supplied the 
Westminster Assembly with a model for the "Shorter 
Catechism" in use to-day. That the university has 
survived the destructive rigors of so many fierce wars 
is perhaps sufficient proof of its vitality and the esti- 
mate men have set on its usefulness. Tilly carried off 
its library and presented it to the Pope, when he con- 
quered Heidelberg in the Thirty Years' War, but al- 
though only a small portion of it has ever been returned 
it has to-day a half -million volumes and documents, 
among which are original writings of Martin Luther 
and manuscripts of the Minnesingers. The pleasant 
summer semester attracts students here, — being al- 
lowed, under the "Freiheit" system, to exchange alma 
maters, — and then one may count up perhaps two 
thousand scholastic transients in Heidelberg. To many 
visitors the equipment will appear meagre, for, except- 
ing the main building in Ludwigs-Platz, the library 
building, medical institution, and botanical gardens, 
there is little in sight to remind one of its existence. In 
witness of which there is the popular joke about a new 
arrival who inquired of a passer-by where the uni- 



HEIDELBERG 26S 

versity might be: "Don't know," was the reply: "I'm 
a student myself." 

The presence of the jovial student, however, is too 
much in evidence at this time of the evening, through 
distant shouts and songs, to leave any one in doubt 
about the university being somewhere hereabouts. But 
when are they not in evidence? At any hour of the day 
and night you come across them in the cafes, on the 
streets, loafing on the bridge or up in the castle, or re- 
turning or departing on their favorite recreation of 
walking-trips through the hills. Their smart peaked 
caps and broad corps ribbons are scenic features of the 
neighborhood. You wonder when they study, and how 
much time they ever spend in the private rooms they 
call their Wohnungen. In spite of the appearance of 
extreme hauteur conveyed by their invariable and cere- 
monious punctilio these ruddy-faced boys are highly 
sociable, and take a prodigious delight in smoking, 
drinking, and singing together. A Kqffeeconcert is en- 
tirely to their liking, and even more a jolly Kegelbahn 
supper in some forest restaurant at the end of a long 
tramp. Most of all, which is amazing, they relish their 
stupid Kneipen where every friendly draft of their weak 
beer is preceded by a challenge to drink, and where the 
only redeeming feature is the fine singing. Still, at 
Commerces, one hears the time-honored Fox Chorus, 
"What comes there from the hill." Even the pet vice 
of dueling might be mildly defended on the ground that 



264 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

German students have no such athletic contests as their 
brothers of America and England and that each looks to 
the sword, in consequence, as an arbiter of courage and 
prowess — from the Fiichse (who are freshmen) to the 
Biirschen (who are seniors). Granted that the occasional 
sabre duel is really dangerous, still injuries are trifling 
in the ordinary encounters Auf der Mensur, fought with 
the thin, basket-hilted Schlager, and preferably on the 
Paukboden of the famous Hirschgasse tavern up the 
little valley across the river. Blood apart, it is rather 
amusing than otherwise to watch the contestants in 
their pads and goggles, the seconds straddling between 
them with drawn words, and the callous umpire keeping 
merry count of the wounds. Few topers and bullies here, 
but vigorous, wholesome youth. 

The outlook from the Grand Balcony is upon a sea 
of foliage so vast as completely to surround castle, gar- 
dens, and terraces and convert them into just such an 
enchanted island as springs so naturally out of the pages 
of the "Arabian Nights." Evidences of sorcery and 
magic multiply as we make the rounds of our fortress, for 
voices and music come up out of the tremulous green 
depths, and companion isles emerge in the moonlit dis- 
tance, but lifted far above us and set on prodigious wave- 
shoulders of steadily increasing height. The loftiest of 
these rocks we know to be famous Konigsstuhl, a name 
they have vainly been trying to change to Kaisers - 
stuhl since the visit of Emperor Francis of Austria, a 



HEIDELBERG U5 

hundred years ago, and Emperor Alexander of Russia. 
From this eyrie perch one looks abroad by day on a 
very considerable portion of the wide, wide world, and 
the distance covered is only limited by the imagination 
of the observer. Then the Neckar valley is at one's 
feet, and a little farther off is the Rhine, and away 
yonder are the Haardt Mountains and the sombre edges 
of the Black Forest. The faint blur on the southwest- 
ern horizon is said to be Speyer, where the followers of 
the Reformation were first called "Protestants," and 
the lofty pinnacle of the cathedral, rising above the 
tombs of its imperial dead, quickens thoughts of that 
"mellifluous doctor" whose writings were "a river of 
Paradise," the crusade preacher, St. Bernard, to whom 
the Madonna is credited with having revealed herself 
in that very church. Our mortal eyes may confirm the 
identity of this much from the Konigsstuhl's observation 
tower, but we can only envy the miraculous vision of 
those who see the spire of the Strassburg Cathedral, sixty 
miles away. Doubtless they could distinguish the iden- 
tical tree of the famous Odenwald rhyme : — 

" There stands a tree in the Odenwald, 
With many a bough so green, 
'Neath which my own true love and I 
A thousand joys have seen." 

Another of the companion isles of this moonlit, tree- 
top ocean is the popular Molkenkur, a modern "whey- 
cure," that flourishes on the princely site of the earliest 



266 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

stronghold of this whole region. To those who are 
strolling its broad terrace and reflecting, perhaps, upon 
the tragic history of the place, seven centuries roll 
back and Barbarossa's brother, the savage Conrad of 
Hohenstaufen, climbs the forest trail with archers and 
spearmen, returning to his mountain retreat from a 
robber raid along the Rhine. And perhaps the visitor 
fancies he even hears the roar of that historic explosion 
that rained the wreckage of old Conrad's fortress on 
town and river, or sees the blinding lightning stroke that 
crumbled this dread stronghold into a stalking-ground 
for the shuddering phantoms of winter fireside legends. 

Reflections that penetrate still farther back into the 
gloaming of local tradition will precede Conrad's fort- 
ress with the temple of the enchantress Jetta; and could 
we distinguish in the distance the rock where the cozy 
inn of the Wolfsbrunnen perches and serves its rare din- 
ners of mountain trout, we should see the very spot 
where the wolf slew Jetta in judgment of the Goddess 
Hertha, who was properly indignant that her priestess 
should have fallen in love with a mortal. 

The nearer waters of the billowy forest-sea that ripples 
around the ruined castle walls contain in their dark, 
cool depths a picturesque tangle of woodland paths and 
romantic walks, thickets of fragrant flowers, a shattered 
arch half cloaked with ivy, and many a pleasant way- 
side cafe opened to the sky and gay with its little German 
band. For those who emerge from the shadows and come 



HEIDELBERG 267 

up like Undines into the moonlight that streams in a 
silver mist on terrace and garden, as fair a picture re- 
veals itself as can be seen in any part of our world. Here 
are lakes and grottoes and fountains and statues, all 
flecked with the heavy shadows of lindens and beeches. 
Here are crumbling towers and vine-mantled turrets and 
shattered, moss-grown arch and cornice. Even lovelier 
to-day are these gardens and scarcely less celebrated 
than three hundred years ago when old Solomon de 
Caus, architect and engineer of the Counts Palatine 
and first prophet of the power of steam, "leveled the 
mountain-tops and filled up the valleys" (as he has 
recorded in a Latin inscription in one of the older grot- 
toes), and built these "plantations" and made them the 
haunts of singing birds, and filled them with orange-trees 
and rare exotic plants, and ornamented them with 
statues and with fountains that made music as they 
played. The ruined castle is embraced and enfolded 
in these beautiful gardens as an ailing child by its 
mother's arms. The ravages of fire and war have scarred 
and wrecked it beyond man's redemption, but the sturdy 
walls still oppose their twenty-foot masonry to the 
attacks of Time as stubbornly as did the great Wrent 
Tower when it defied the powder blasts of the detested 
Count Melac and his devastating Frenchmen. 

As the hour of ten draws near, we return through the 
vaulted passage from the Great Balcony and enter the 
grass-grown central courtyard. Outside the fagades 



268 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

were grim and bleak and built to meet an enemy's blows, 
but toward the courtyard the castle turned faces of 
ornament and beauty. One feels at once the force of 
the saying that this is not the ruin of a castle, but of an 
epoch. It slowly flowered through the five hundred years 
that Heidelberg was the capital of the Palatinate, and 
all the development of those intervening times is ex- 
pressed in its varying architecture. Pomp and cir- 
cumstance are written big across it, for its masters and 
builders were counts and princes, kings and emperors. 
One feels the love and pride they took in these deserted 
palaces, now masterless. In the pale moonlight whole 
rows of effigies of the illustrious dead stand boldly forth 
in niches of the hollow, staring walls, and medallion 
heads peer curiously out of pediment recesses, and his- 
tory and allegory find expression in lifelike statue and 
carven bust. Delicate arabesques and fanciful conceits 
wreathe themselves in stones of portal and cornice, 
and the armorial chequers of Bavaria and the Lion 
of the Palatinate oppose the lordly Eagle of the Empire. 
Time has modulated the discordant keys of architecture 
of divergent periods into a common and mellow har- 
mony, so that the first rude stones laid by old Rudolph 
seem a consistent part of an assemblage that includes 
that finest example of Renaissance architecture in all 
Germany — Otto-Heinrich's wonderful ruddy palace 
set with its yellow statues. One thinks of Prague and 
the battle of the White Hill as he sees the ill-starred 



HEIDELBERG 269 

Frederick's massive contribution, and wonders why 
this beautiful realm could not have enticed him from 
playing that tragic role of "Winter King." Frederick's 
palace looms impressively by night; in its varied archi- 
tecture and majestic effigies of the House of Wittelsbach 
one feels the propriety of having here a comprehensive 
levy upon the building-knowledge of all previous time 
as an adequate and appropriate expression of the cath- 
olic culture of the lords of the Palatinate. 

And, indeed, one reflects, there was need for both 
strength and beauty to a fortress that was to play so 
momentous a role in the fierce dissensions of its time. 
In that dungeon a pope once lay a prisoner; in this cham- 
ber Huss found refuge; in yonder chapel Luther has 
preached, and all the foremost spiritual lords of the 
hour. This courtyard has echoed with shouts for the 
Emperor Sigismund when he tarried here en route to 
play that perfidious part at the Council of Constance, 
and has rocked with wild applause as "Wicked Fritz," 
returning in triumph from the battlefield of Secken- 
heim, marched in his captive princes. These staring walls 
have blazed with royal fetes — in the hush and desolation 
of to-night one feels a deep sadness in contrasting the 
ominous silence that pervades them now with the splen- 
dor and uproar that vitalized them when a princess 
was wedded in this crumbling chapel; when Emperor 
Maximilian came up from his coronation at Frank- 
fort; when the foremost figure of his era, Emperor 



270 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Charles V, and his sallow little son who was later 
Phillip II, feasted and reveled here for days at a 
time. 

We look up at the Gothic balconies, and it seems as 
though we could almost see some early lord of this 
stronghold peering down through painted windows at 
the athletic sports of his hardy sons; and a certain 
unreality takes phantom form and substance, and the 
sentinel figures descend solemnly from their niches as a 
train of valorous knights and pages issues from Otto- 
Heinrich's broad portal with music and laughter; there 
is the scrape and tread of mailed feet and the shouts of a 
gallant company as fair-haired women in shimmering 
silks and high-peaked headdresses award prizes of the 
tourney to kneeling men in glittering armor; and the 
trumpets sound and the torches flare and the noble 
retinue sweeps into the great banquet hall, while the 
"merry councilor" who brings up the rear makes us a 
profound and mocking bow as the door is closed — and 
we are alone with the statues in the moonlight. 

The empty, silent courtyard is spectral and sad ; it is 
an hour for reverie, for apprehension. The pale silver of 
the moon whitens into phantom-life two sides and a 
corner; the rest is a deep, hushed shadow. A cushion of 
ivy stirs in the faint night air; a bat flashes over a shat- 
tered cornice; a stone detaches itself exhaustedly and 
falls with a tinkle of sand, waking a protest of little 
echoes. 



HEIDELBERG 271 

One steals away silently, resigning ward of all this 
senile decay to faithful Perkeo, who, in wooden effigy, 
still companions his huge empty tuns in the darkness of 
the cellars — the little, red-haired, faithful jester who 
alone remains constant to his master, of all the army of 
attendants that thronged these palaces for half a thou- 
sand years. 

We pass the old stone-canopied well whose columns 
once were Charlemagne's, pass the ponderous clock 
tower and the moat bridge, and enter the fragrant 
gardens as the valley bells sound ten and the purple 
mists are rising from the Neckar. 

It is impossible to escape a feeling of profound melan- 
choly. Where now are the powerful princes whose 
rusted swords may not strike back were I to raise a 
hand of destruction against the halls they reared and 
loved and guarded with such might? "The fate of 
every man," said the Koran, "have We bound about 
his neck." 

It is depressing to think that such glory, power, and 
beauty as once were here should have flourished so 
wonderfully and come to so little. Was all this mag- 
nificence created merely for destruction? Could no- 
thing less suffice grim Time to build him an eyrie for 
bats and swallows? Was Von Matthisson right in the 
judgment he expressed in the sad and sympathetic 
"Elegie" he penned in these ruins, and must we con- 
clude with him that temporal glory is but ashes and 



n% AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

that the darkness of the grave adorns impartially the 
proud brow of the world ruler and the trembling head 
that shakes above the pilgrim's staff? 

" Hoheit, Ehre, Macht und Ruhm sind eitel! 
Eines weltgebieters stolze Scheitel 
Und ein zitternd Haupt am Pilgerstab 
Deckt mit einer Dunkelheit das Grab ! " 



INTERLAKEN 

10 P.M. TO 11 P.M. 




INTERLAKEN 

10 P.M. TO 11 P.M. 

The top of the evening at brisk and bracing Interlaken 
is certainly ten o'clock. Vigorous, vitalizing air breathes 
down on the lush meadows from towering Alpine snow- 
fields, and languor and ennui fall away from her dis- 
pirited summer idlers and a refreshing life interest 
reasserts itself. It is then one may see the deep, flowered 
lawns that front the great hotels of the broad Hbhe- 
weg pleasantly thronged with animated guests, modishly 
and immaculately groomed; and each little street and 
quiet lane has its quota of vivacious strollers who prefer 
the keen night air and the inspiring mountain-prospect to 
the conventional attractions of the brilliant Kursaal or 
the round of mild social diversions that is in progress 
in the hotel apartments. Then, too, there is a certain 
subdued note of expectancy in the air, for this is the 
little village's fete hour; and almost as the valley clocks 
are striking the hour the celebration is heralded with a 
burst of rockets from the open field of the Hohenmatte, 
in the centre of the town, and there is a general rush of 
chattering guests to see the display and to exhibit pro- 
digious approval. All are aware of the fact that this is 



276 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

merely an expression, in terms of Swiss thrift, of the 
appreciation the seventy-five hundred villagers feel 
for the lucrative presence of thousands of guests, and 
yet it admirably serves as a mid-break in the evening's 
diversions. There is little enough to the celebration, to 
be sure, excepting the exaggerated importance such an 
event always assumes to isolated summer people, but 
you would think it was a pyrotechnic marvel, to judge 
by the enthusiasm. 

To see Interlaken then is to behold her at her gayest. 
Bridge-parties forsake their cards, late diners their 
ices, and billiardists their cues. Each little balcony on 
the hotel fronts is promptly crowded, orchestras strike 
up lively Strauss waltzes, troops of delighted guests 
hurry across the Hoheweg and pour into the meadow, 
until one might fairly conclude there was a carnival on, 
from the overflow of laughter and merrymaking. It is 
always a great moment at the Kursaal. There the ex- 
citement seekers have been wandering from parlors to 
lounging-rooms and ending up in the cheery gaming- 
hall, where a toy train on a long green table darts around 
a little track, laden with the francs and merry hopes of 
modest challengers of fortune, and comes to an exciting 
and leisurely stop before some station with the name of 
a European capital. Just then, like as not, as the croupier 
begins raking in the scattered piles of silver and the 
losers are being gleefully accosted by their friends, 
somebody suddenly shouts "Fireworks!" and forthwith 



INTERLAKEN 277 

all run hurrahing into the gardens and cry out like 
summer children in vast delight over the rockets that go 
hurtling skyward from the Hohenmatte. It is all quite 
of the nature of a very elegant international fete to 
which the Old World and the New have accredited 
their most recherche representatives. 

There is seldom a lack of keen activity at Interlaken, 
but at this hour it is most abounding; nor will the new 
arrival fail to note the contrast between the sharp alert- 
ness of this company and the lethargic listlessness that 
depresses, for instance, the bored idlers who bask in the 
dusty olive gardens of the Riviera. In the intermittent 
glow of the fireworks, cottages and distant hotels spring 
out of the surrounding darkness. The top of a hillside 
sanatorium appears of a sudden white against the dark 
pines, the packsaddle roof of the church tower discovers 
itself, a turret shows with the red field and white Greek 
cross of the Swiss flag lazily unfolding above it, and one 
looks anxiously for just one glimpse of the old cloister's 
round towers and cone-shaped roofs that reminded 
Longfellow of "tall tapers with extinguishers." Music 
drifts down from remote cafes and pavilions nestling 
in wooded nooks. The air is heady and buoyant with the 
scent of pine and fir. Life seems at high tide; and then 
just as suddenly it is all over, and the gay company 
resumes its interrupted activities with infinite laughter 
and handclapping. 

There is a positive spell to all this Alpine comedy. 



278 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

No new arrival will feel inclined to return at once to 
hotel conventionalities, with a soft purple mist shroud- 
ing the Lauterbrunnen Valley, and the distant Jung- 
frau lying pallid and wan in the moonlight. He will 
gaze about him in wonder at the snow-crowned peaks 
that hem in the little Bodeli plain where Interlaken 
snuggles, and will feel how wonderful it is that the 
boisterous Lutschine and its fellow torrents could ever 
have filled in this alluvial barrier between the deep 
lakes that fought them inch by inch. He will think of 
the enchanted regions of the Bernese Oberland that lie 
just before him, and of the contrasting beauty of the 
inland seas that stretch away on either hand: Lake 
Brienz, mysterious and austere, scowling at its precip- 
itous mountain shores, roaring welcomes to its thunder- 
ing waterfalls, and begrudging standing-room for the 
tiniest of hamlets; Lake Thun, "the Riviera of Switz- 
erland," with lovely vistas of green meadows, cha- 
teaux-dotted hillsides and distant snowy summits, all 
breathing such mildness and serenity as befitted the 
former abode of the holy hermit of St. Beatenberg. 
And doubtless he will seek out some tree-embowered 
path that winds along the Aare, and there indulge in 
contemplative thought of this glittering blue link be- 
tween the lakes. Nor could he do better, for this arrog- 
ant stream is an illustrious instance of a reformed rake. 
Of evil repute for riotous cascade and brawling tor- 
rent all the way up to its home by the Grimsel Pass, it 



INTERLAKEN 279 

responds to the touch of civilization at Interlaken and 
meekly accepts the bondage of steam for the remainder 
of its career. What a gratifying example of reform it 
presents as it proceeds demurely along from this scene 
of moral crisis, laving thankful little towns, reporting 
conscientiously to the proper authorities at Bern, and, 
after an exhibition review-sweep around the capital, 
flowing sweetly on to Waldshut and modestly laying 
down its burden on the broad bosom of the Rhine. The 
stranger will perceive that virtue has its rewards, with 
rivers as with humans, when he takes note of the ex- 
travagant petting and eulogy that has followed the re- 
pentance of the Aare at Interlaken, its adornment with 
promenades, gardens, and artistic bridges, and the choice 
of much excellent society, particularly at night, on the 
part of ruminating savants and romantic lovers of all 
ages. 

Strolling along the river paths carpeted with sweet- 
scented pine needles, the delighted new arrival has only 
to lift his eyes to discover how picturesquely the little 
city lies in its bed of lush and fertile meadows. It will 
seem to him like a great stage set for a mammoth spec- 
tacle. For background there is the black and flinty 
Harder, set with the grim rock face of the scowling 
Hardermannli, rugged in boulders and sheer cliffs and 
hiding its base in treacherous, grassy slopes; the Aare 
skirts it fearfully, and the pretty little cottages of Unter- 
seen shrink close to Lake Thun on its farther side. 



280 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Prostrate Interlaken lies supine before it, gazing appeal- 
ingly through its innumerable windows across the open 
Hohenmatte, over the beeches and firs of the protruding 
shoulder of the Rugen, and on up the dodging, narrow 
Lutschine Valley to the remote and sympathetic Jung- 
frau. The scene is ready for the curtain when you have 
dotted the mountain slopes with chalets. 

Or perhaps, if the stranger is fanciful, he will conceive 
the Alpine ravens thinking it some enormous eagle 
swooping toward the Lauterbrunnen Valley, with clus- 
tered houses for an attenuated body and two lakes for 
powerful blue wings beating out and back. Or, again, he 
may be reminded by this group of huge hotels of some 
fleet of old-time ships-of-the-line that started down the 
valley to bombard the Jungfrau. Early in the action 
formation was lost and the great hulks drifted about in 
hopeless confusion. Several, apparently, went promptly 
aground on the banks of the Aare right under the pre- 
cipices of the Harder; all of the big ones foundered in a 
row along the Hoheweg; a number became desperately 
entangled in the square before the Spielmatten Island; 
some trailed southward in what we call Jungfraustrasse, 
and others in Alpenstrasse ; here and there one lies at 
anchor along the farther meadows, waiting for signals 
from the flagship on the Hoheweg; and at least one, in 
the guise of an ugly white church, was caught in some 
violent cross-current and tossed up high and dry on the 
brow of the fir-smothered Gsteig. 



INTERLAKEN 281 

The evening guest who does not fancy reveries along a 
mountain stream, nor yet the quiet pacing of the neat 
lanes that are so characteristic of this immaculate repub- 
lic of "spotless towns," whose very flag appropriately 
suggests the Red Cross Society's familiar emblem of 
sanitation, will find it amusing to loiter among the little 
shops of the village and see the curious wooden trifles of 
Brienz, the delicately tinted majolica ware of Thun, ex- 
quisite ivory carvings, and rare bijouterie of filigree silver 
wrought with infinite patience and skill. Tiring of these, 
he may ramble under the fine old walnut-trees of the 
Hoheweg and congratulate himself that he is not under 
the horse-chestnuts of Lucerne to look out on inferior 
mountain prospects and breathe a less intoxicating air. 

The most approved form of evening entertainment is 
a round of calls among friends scattered over the broad 
lawns of the hotels, when one may divert himself with 
summer orchestras or itinerant bands of Italian singers 
in crimson sashes, or revel in a rare profusion of beauti- 
ful flowers; and, from time to time, look gladly up at a 
crisp sky splendid with great luminous stars whose trem- 
ulous ardor, in Walter Pater's famous phrase, "burns like 
a gem." It is a capital place to gather impressions of 
what life at Interlaken means and what goes forward 
each day among its votaries. It is perfectly plain that 
this must be a great place; everybody is so bubblingly 
cheerful and so devoutly grateful for being just here and 
no possible spot else. You will hear them insisting that 



282 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Interlaken, being halfway between, is an admirable com- 
bination of the complacent "prettiness" of Geneva and 
Ehe austere solemnity of the vaunted Engadine Valley. 
Or there will be fragments of conversation reaching you 
about tennis matches on the Hbhenmatte, lake bathing 
in Brienz, motor-bus runs from the golf links of Bonigen, 
where the residents plant a fruit tree whenever a baby 
is born, or of desperate scrambles up the zigzag trails of 
the Harder beloved of Weber, Mendelssohn, and Wag- 
ner, with rapturous accounts of the inspiring view from 
the Kulm. Some, you will gather, have passed the day 
uneventfully among the park walks of the Rugen, gazing 
down on Lake Brienz from the Trinkhalle Cafe, or on 
Lake Thun from the Scheffel Pavilion, or on both from 
farther up on the belvedere of the Heimwehfluh. Others 
again, it seems, have actually crossed the mild Wagner 
Ravine and ascended the lofty Abendberg of the Grosser 
Rugen; and for this pitiful adventure you hear them pose 
as veteran mountain conquerors who will carry their 
alpenstocks home with them and forever after speak 
familiarly of edelweiss and the flora of the summits. 
There even appear to have been romantic souls, familiar 
with Madame de StaeTs accounts of St. Berchtold festi- 
vals, who have spent the hours in dreams of Byron's 
"Manfred" down by the old round tower of the dilapi- 
dated wreckage of Unspunnen Castle — in truth, the most 
abject of ruins, and quite as forlorn as Mariana's Moated 
Grange. Not a few will have the courage to confess that 





INTERLAKEN, ON THE HOTEL LAWN 



INTERLAKEN 283 

they have done nothing more heroic than stroll by the 
shaded Goldei promenades along the Aare until they 
came to Unterseen, where they deliberately sat down 
and gazed to satiety at the curious toy houses with the 
long carved balconies and amazing roofs that project 
beyond all belief. 

Thus, by merely catching flying ends of talk, a 
stranger may imbibe the proper amount of enthusiasm 
and gather some rambling notion of the fine things 
Interlaken has in store for him. 

But the real evening-heroes must be looked for at the 

Kursaal. That is where you hear the great champion 

talkers of the world ! What was the amiable Tartarin to 

such as these? Or Baron Munchausen? Or Sir John 

Mandeville? On such deaf ears fell the warning ignored 

of "Excelsior": — 

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! 
Beware the awful avalanche!" 

Behold them at their ease in wicker chairs in the loung- 
ing-room, stretching the weary limbs that have borne 
them in safety through a hundred Alpine perils. For all 
who will listen, what tales may be heard of desperate 
daring amid the imminent deadly breach of crevasse 
and avalanche ! Under the vivid hand of the actual par- 
ticipant one fairly sees the progress of the proud moun- 
tain-queller — follows with bated breath the slow and 
tedious early stages, the hazardous upward advance, 
the surmounting of final barriers by dint of ice-axe and 



284 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

life-rope, and so enters into the joy of the ultimate 
conquest of the wild, bleak, wind-swept summit. Who 
would have the hardihood in such a presence to speak 
a word of such contemptible contrivances as mountain 
tramways and funicular railroads ! It is enough that the 
uninitiated should realize in the shuddering depths of his 
soul that there still remains terra incognita to the listless, 
the fat, and the asthmatic. Later on, of course, we come 
to view these hardy characters in a somewhat truer per- 
spective; but that will be after we have talked with their 
guides, or ourselves turned heroes and bluffed at like 
hazards. 

All the same, there is no denying the satisfaction a 
newcomer has, in the beginning, in attending the impres- 
sive conversation of these desperate and intrepid Kur- 
saal adventurers. He certainly feels that he has at last 
reached a region of hardy men and genuine mountain 
hand-to-hand struggles. He hears, with popping eyes, of 
the lofty little hamlet of Miirren, away up in cloudland, 
whose tiny cottages stagger under broad, stone-freighted 
roofs and where vast, sublime Titans scowl awfully 
from inaccessible heights. They tell him it is a region of 
eternal dazzling whiteness, with patches of black here 
and there that are really forests half buried in snow, and 
where the air is stifling with the constant odor of ice and 
frost. A truly shuddering place, they say, where men 
cannot hear themselves talk for the incessant thunder- 
ing of plunging avalanches, and where the herdsman 



INTERLAKEN 285 

seldom ventures and the sunrise is never heralded by the 
alphorn of the hardy Senn. Later on, to be sure, we 
journey luxuriously to this same Miirren in a comfort- 
able mountain railway and with considerably less of 
peril than attends going to office by elevator in a sky- 
scraper at home; and we find it a green and peaceful 
retreat, well supplied with hotels and gratefully affected 
by delicate old ladies with weak lungs. Just the same, 
we would not have missed the thrills of that first Kur- 
saal account. Alas for all disillusionment, anyway! 
Most of the beautiful white, velvety edelweiss these 
rocking-chair climbers produce from their pockets in 
proof of their presence in frightful and remote ravines 
has really been bought for a franc on the Hbheweg, and 
the chamois they stalked in summit passes generally 
dwindle down to the little ivory ones you find in the 
shops of Jungfraustrasse. 

The truth of the Kursaal, when you get it, is stranger 
than its fiction; as when the talk turns to the progress of 
the construction work on the Jungfrau Railway, that 
imperishable monument to the genius and patience of 
the late Adolf Guyer-Zeller, of Zurich. It is then you 
hear of the loftiest tunnels in the world, eight and ten 
miles long, through icy mountain shoulders ten thousand 
feet above the sea; of gradients of one in four; of squirrel 
locomotives so ingeniously contrived that if the electric 
power were suddenly to fail they could generate enough 
by their own weight to clap on brakes and come down in 



286 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

safety; of searchlights in the stations on the peaks so 
strong that a man can read by them away over at Thun; 
of powerful telescopes, free to patrons, through which 
you may observe the occupations of the crowds on the 
Rigi and Mount Pilatus at remote Lucerne; of roomy 
and luxurious stations blasted out of the depths of the 
mountains, whose floors are parquetry and whose light 
and heat are electricity, with twenty-foot windows 
piercing the rock and appearing, even from across the 
neighboring abyss, like tiny pin-pricks in the perpendic- 
ular cliff; of the highest post-office on earth, from whose 
windows you look out on twenty glaciers. Of the truth 
of all this you are to learn later on when you make the 
unforgettable run to Eismeer — "sea of ice" — the 
farthest point so far attained in the steady progress of 
this marvelous railway toward the summit of the Jung- 
frau, now only a mile or two beyond, and which had 
been the despair of mountain climbers of all time until 
the Meyer brothers conquered it, one hundred years 
ago. 

One finds the evening gossipers of the Kursaal scarcely 
less fascinating when they focus their talents on nearer 
regions; for "distant meadows" are not always "the 
greenest." Agreeable things are to be heard of Schynige 
Platte, whither, it appears, you journey by cogwheel 
railway up steep gradients in an observation car behind 
a violently puffing locomotive, past pretty toy stations, 
around dizzy corners, through the startling blackness of 



INTERLAKEN 287 

unexpected tunnels, and so on out and up to the giddy 
plateau and an overpowering prospect of snowfields, 
misty valleys, gorges, and cataracts upon which you 
gaze in spellbound astonishment from the comfortable 
terrace of the "Alpenrose." From no other viewpoint, 
they tell you, does the stupendous Monch (Monk) seem 
to stand out so squarely in the middle distance in his 
cowl of snow, playing his traditional role of discouraging 
duenna between the coveted Jungfrau and the eager 
Eiger whom he repels with an eternal arm of glittering, 
blue ridge-ice. 

When the conversation takes up Grindelwald, it be- 
comes so attractive that you make a mental note to go 
there the first thing in the morning. It seems you are to 
take one of those droll little coaches of the Bernese Ober- 
land Road marked "B.O.B.," and proceed delightedly 
up the green valley of the Liitschine. Very soon will 
loom before you the bleak shoulders of the Wetterhorn, 
seared and precipitous, capped and pocketed with snow; 
the overwhelming pyramid of the Eiger, fearful with 
gorge and chasm; the regal Jungfrau, immaculate and 
stupendous; and, most uncommon spectacle of all, the 
awe-inspiring glacier — a frozen tumble of scarred boul- 
ders and grimy icebergs, pierced by glittering ice grot- 
toes and ridged with terraced ways from which you stare 
down into yawning black gulfs that are fringed with 
giant icicles pendent from the frozen ledges. What was 
it Coleridge said of glaciers? 



288 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EtJROPE 

" Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, 
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! 
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!" 

But many there will be at the Kursaal to tell you such 
tales of the enchanted Lauterbrunnen Valley as to in- 
cline you to reconsider any resolution about going first 
to Grindelwald. There, it is clear, we are to find quality 
rather than quantity: a narrow ravine through the 
mountains, carpeted with the greenest of turf and hung 
with glorious waterfalls that come tumbling down from 
lofty limestone precipices. We are to drive beside a 
turbulent stream set with occasional chalets whose pro- 
jecting roofs will suggest broad-brimmed hats jammed 
down over their eyes, and here and there we shall come 
across a white stone church. Shortly there will be 
raging, leaping torrents all about us, vaulting down 
great cliffs of strange and startling appearance, and a 
vista of wonderland will open before us with the stately 
Steinberg enthroned in the midst. Next, climax on 
climax, the incomparable Staubbach ! Before this queen 
of cataracts every other "hanging thread" is instantly 
and hopelessly dwarfed, as it launches its "wreaths of 
dangling water-smoke " from a thousand feet above. We 
will think this "dust brook" a mere feathery spray flut- 
tered in a capricious breeze, so astonishing is the evid- 
ence of the resistance of the air and the friction of the 
rocks back of it; but once we have gone behind it and 
observed the "perpetual iris" made by the sun in shin- 



INTERLAKEN 289 

ing through, it will appear a wonder beyond classifica- 
tion. Byron fancied it "the tail of the White Horse"; 
Wordsworth called it "the sky-born waterfall"; and 
Goethe's dripping song of it runs : — 

"In clouds of spray, 
Like silver dust, 
It veils the rock 
In rainbow hues; 
And dancing down 
With music soft, 
Is lost in air." 

Lesser lights are to be found among the Kursaal he- 
roes who will confess to nothing more unusual in the way 
of activity than salmon-fishing in the neighboring lakes 
or bagging red partridge and hazel hens in the upper 
meadows. But these, by contrast, appear sportsmen 
of so mean an order that the stranger who has fed fat 
on the succulent yarns of the Munchausens receives 
with impatience information for which, in fact, he should 
be grateful. For instance : that in the winter the ther- 
mometers of the higher settlements get down to fifty- 
four below freezing and yet the dry air keeps people 
warmer than in the valleys, and that the snow falls in 
such incredible quantities that artificial lights have to 
be used in the lower stories of the houses all day and 
trenches cut for exit; that up there when the terrific 
Fohn blows from the south no man can make headway 
against it, but must lie flat on his face and hang on and 
then jump up and dart forward a few yards between 



290 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

gusts; that those people can foretell the weather by 
changes in the color of the ice — blue meaning fine, 
green for snow, and white for fog; that the Alpine crows 
of the summits are dark blue, with yellow beaks and red 
feet, and the "wall-creepers" are gray as mice, with 
white and red spots on their wings and with beaks 
shaped like awls. At some such point as this the stranger 
will rise with a yawn and go away in disgust, annoyed 
at being taken for a credulous fool. The seed, however, 
has been sown and it flourishes like the fabled mustard. 
The new arrival becomes a confirmed zealot and burns 
with all the ardor of a convert; albeit his brain is a con- 
fused and bewildered muddle of harsh-sounding moun- 
tain names, all, apparently, ending in horn. 

When he comes out on the lawns he finds the guests 
still thronging the verandas, although it is nearly eleven 
and prodigies of mountaineering are slated for the mor- 
row, and he hears the bands still engaged with Puccini 
and the latest Vienna successes. In the fragrant, dewy 
gardens fountains are playing, and lovers are discreetly 
screening behind clumps of flowering shrubs. Return- 
ing excursionists are excitedly vocal over the illumina- 
tion of the Giessbach, whence they have just arrived in 
one of those pompous lake steamers whose sure and cau- 
tious pace reminded the satirical Victor Tissot of "the 
dignified motion of a canalboat." To hear these enthusi- 
asts, this appears to have been one more of those excep- 
tionable occasions that the absent are always missing, 



INTERLAKEN 291 

and that the renowned waterfall never before roared 
and tumbled and foamed half so extravagantly in mak- 
ing its long, mad plunge through the dusky, dark-green 
firs. Out on the Hoheweg a walking-party in knicker- 
bockers and hobnailed shoes, and with edelweiss stuck 
in green felt hats, are flourishing their alpenstocks and 
driving bargains with sunburned guides whose names, 
undoubtedly, are either Melchior or Mathias; these 
latter, we are to learn, are of a fearless but canny and 
laconic nature, "economical as gypsies and punctual as 
executioners." 

How keenly people take their pleasures in the spark- 
ling evenings of Interlaken. How sharp and distinct are 
sounds and sights, and how varied the night life. Each 
little street is as gayly illuminated as though for some 
special celebration, and so hearty with good cheer that 
one looks for some band of Bernese wrestlers, returning 
in triumph from a festival, to round the next corner and 
strike up that clarion anthem "Stehe fest, O Vaterland." 
It would seem as though the "Fete du Mi-Ete" must 
actually be in full swing right here, instead of afar in the 
upland pastures. Even at this hour a joyful multitude 
still streams along under the Hoheweg's century-old 
walnuts, hatless, radiant, and babbling in every Europ- 
ean tongue. They flock about the confectioners' stands 
and in and out of the curiosity-chalets, greeting acquaint- 
ances with eager pleasure and proposing jolly plans for 
to-morrow. Each little shop seems selling to capacity. 



292 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Occasionally a peasant girl passes, brusque and stolid, 
in short skirt and bright bodice, with V-shaped rows 
of edelweiss buttons. Out on the green Hohenmatte 
lively groups loiter about aimlessly, and somewhere in 
the vague distance some one is singing the ever-popular 
"Trittst im Morgenrot daher." The thickly -wooded 
Rugen seems a colossal black mastiff asleep with his head 
between his paws. Away up the misty valley, whose 
vital air is so sweet with refreshing odors and so soothing 
with soft music, the regal Jungfrau looms in dim and 
spectral outline, as ghostly and deceptive as any faint 
feathering of cumulus clouds. 

A distant Jodel or the lilt of a plaintive Ranz des 
V aches excites cordial thoughts of this fair Helvetia and 
her strong and devoted people. "I wonder," a friend 
once said to me at Interlaken, "if these men and women 
really appreciate how lovely their country is." Perhaps 
the best answer is to be found in the desperate resolu- 
tion with which they have held it for six hundred years. 
Hard necessity has taught these brawny mountaineers, 
whom Mr. Ruskin ungenerously called "ungenerous 
and unchivalrous," that to be "painfully economical" is 
wiser than to chance privation. One thinks with wonder 
of the hardships endured by the herdsman away up in 
the mountain pastures, eating his sweet-bread and drain- 
ing his milk-filled wooden bowl in a rude pine hut, with 
goats and kine for comrades, and, for his sole diversion, 
an occasional glimpse of a leaping chamois, a sly moun- 



INTERLAKEN 293 

tain fox, a white hare, or the whistling, rat-like, shadowy 
marmot. With his long alphorn he calls the cattle home 
or sounds the vesper hour, until the loud echoes shout 
back from snowfield and ice gorge and the great ravens 
swerve in their swimming flight. In summer, fluttering 
clouds of butterflies will drift above the pansies and 
Alpine roses and gentians on his meadow; but in winter 
the pallid, velvety edelweiss is all the huntsman will 
find on those frozen ledges. What a wild and tragic 
region it must be when the last Senn has driven his herd 
down into the valleys and old Winter is in undisturbed 
possession of his "dear domestic cave." The herdsman 
may rejoice that he is not there then; for it becomes 
a world of black and white, of illimitable snow and 
blotches of black forests, of death and waste and the 
frightful stillness of stupendous heights. Then it is a 
deserted realm of ice and snow set with pitfalls of treach- 
erous crevasses and dreadful perils from hidden gulfs 
and pitiless avalanches; a shuddering space of cloud 
banks and waving vapor-scarfs; a haunted borderland 
of sinister shapes in the writhing mists like wraiths of 
Alpine legends. 

Even so, hundreds of failing foreigners go a long way 
up in those forbidding regions in winter for an "enthusi- 
asm of the blood " and a "fairy titillation of the nerves." 
And when the days are bright and of their peculiar 
crystal clearness, and the skies are a cloudless blue 
and the sunshine a deluge, these invalids revel in skating 



294 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

and curling and the hockey they call "bandy"; and 
will even try appalling nights by ski and toboggan 
through the "nipping and eager air," over smooth 
trails of glistening snow, rivaling the records of the 
"blue-ribbon" Schatzalp course at Davos, where 
they do the two-mile run in something under four min- 
utes. There is a chance observation in "Silas Marner" 
that "youth is not exclusively the period of folly!" 

Of a summer evening, however, it might not be alto- 
gether unpleasant in some parts of that cloudland. 
Could we return with the happy little mule-boy who has 
just now come "jodeling" down from the passes, doubt- 
less we should find the sound of goat bells both romantic 
and soothing up there, and might even in time muster a 
respectable show of excitement over the passage of the 
four-horse diligences as they rattle by in storms of 
dust. Certainly we should come across many a charm- 
ing little wayside inn far up those winding roads that 
climb to solitude, and they would have overhanging 
eaves and carved wooden balconies and boxes of rich 
orange nasturtiums before the tiny windows with the 
lozenge panes; and when we pushed open the door and 
walked in, there would be a great stone stove in a bar 
parlor and the face of William Tell on an old clock 
behind the door. 

One reads in "Hyperion" of a stolid Englishman so 
far forgetting his cherished reserve as to exclaim: "This 
Interlaken! This Interlaken! It is the loveliest spot 



INTERLAKEN 295 

on the face of the earth!" It is a nice question as to 
whether any one might not easily be guilty of like en- 
thusiasm, provided the time were evening, and that he 
were capable of responding to something of such pas- 
sionate sympathy for mountain and valley as breathes 
through Schiller's " Wilhelm Tell." It is impossible not 
to be moved by such unusual beauty or uplifted by 
such sublimity. Here jangled nerves recover rhythm 
and dulled interests vitality. Boredom and ennui fall 
away, and work and responsibility acquire new value 
and lustre. In the still of these pine-scented evenings, 
luminous with enormous stars, a keen and sobering 
joy of life takes full and welcome possession. Here, if 
anywhere, the sun of youth will have its afterglow. 

There is something like benediction in a night-vision 
of the magic Jungfrau — peerless "bride of quietness." 
With such an appealing spectacle in view, what wonder 
that the houses have so many windows, or the night 
" a thousand eyes." It is the master touch to Interlaken, 
completing and glorifying the picture as it banks the 
far end of the valley with towering clouds of snow. 
Neither Mont Blanc nor the Matterhorn may rival this 
queen of the Alps, so charming in outline, vast in bulk, 
and ravishing in purity. It could not fail to dominate 
any region of earth, and Interlaken acknowledges its su- 
premacy with a completeness that is not without a cer- 
tain flavor of proprietorship. Each hillside has its view- 
pavilion, belvedere, or simple clearing, like so many 



296 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

chapels for devotion. We come each morning for our 
sunrise view, pass the day in adoration, marvel at sunset 
and the afterglow, and close the evening with a wonder- 
wist contemplation of the phantom peak in moonlight. 
Of these "stations" of the mount, the afterglow is the 
climax. Nor is the reason far to seek, once you have stood 
among the awed and reverent throng that crowds the 
Hohenmatte each late afternoon, and have seen black 
night about you in the valley, while, for an hour or more 
after, the snowfields of the Jungfrau's summits still con- 
tinued to blaze brilliantly in full sunshine. And then, as 
we watched, there came the color-miracle of glittering 
white merging into every hue of the rose, into scarlet 
stains and a deluge of crimson, into deepening tints and 
sombre shades of blue, and finally fading gradually to 
a misty, grayish, cloudy shadow as the last fires burned 
out and the great mountain paled to a phantom of the 

night. 

"When daylight dies, 
The azure skies 
Seem sparkling with a thousand eyes, 
That watch with grace 
From depths of space 
The sleeping Jungfrau's lovely face." 

How spirit-like, how faint and fair the magic mountain 
swims at night among its silver cloud veils ! What seren- 
ity and majesty invest it! Did God here plan another 
flood, and stay His hand when He had heaped an angry 
ocean into this dread tidal wave and left it piled in sus- 



INTERLAKEN 297 

pended motion, with giant frozen seas, furious with 
foam, mounting to that appalling crest that seems to 
dash its icy spray against the very skies? No man may 
look with undaunted heart upon the chaos of its glit- 
tering snowy plains, vast, chaste, and spectral in the 
moonlight. How base and contemptible appear the 
petty pursuits of man in the presence of such thrilling 
sublimity ! It reconciles him to his lot in life, where his 
"much" is really so very little; and inspires courage, 
and shames the heart from low, ignoble ends. 

There is reverent awe in thoughts of the breathless 
hush of the far, white vales no man has trod; the remote 
and shuddering abysses into which the very birds of the 
air look down with affright. There is magic of inspira- 
tion in its sublime aloofness — as with those "unheard 
melodies that are sweetest," those supremest joys that 
lie beyond attainment. Through the hidden, echoing 
caverns of this fair, pallid mount wan spirits of Snow- 
land may even now be dancing; along its lonely, lovely 
glades are "horns of elfland faintly blowing." Of its 
profoundest and most secret mysteries not even the 
friendly moon may have too curious knowledge — 
mysteries unknown of man since first the morning stars 
sang together. 



VENICE 

11 P.M. TO MIDNIGHT 




, 




myom^!- ^ 



m 



VENICE 

11 P.M. TO MIDNIGHT 

A July moon over, a gondola under, a tenor lilting a 
barcarolle, thousands with you on the Grand Canal — 
Venice a festal From a near-by belfry, a clock booms 
eleven. Eleven ! and we are only to the Foscari Palace. 
An hour ago we started at the Rialto, a thousand gay 
gondolas with bunting, lanterns, and greens, every- 
body jostling, singing, and shouting, and in the centre, 
like the queen-jewel of a tiara, the brilliant barca filled 
with orchestra and singers and ablaze in a myriad of 
colored lights. This is a great occasion, the serenata 
ufficiale. The festa of the Redentore is near its close. 
Church portals hang with mulberry branches begged by 
the monks of St. Francis, and the people have feasted 
royally on the luscious black fruit bought at the little 
stands on the Giudecca quays. Last Sunday the priestly 
procession in full canonicals crossed the bridge of boats 
to the Giudecca on its annual pilgrimage to the church 
of the Redentore. Venice thus sustains her reputation 
as a reverencer of traditions; they are burning lamps still 
in San Marco Cathedral for an innocent man who was 
put to death hundreds of years ago. And so the church 



302 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

of the Redentore is packed to suffocation at least one 
day of the year, and after that, with the religious rites 
off her mind, Venice suddenly gives up trying to look 
solemn and bursts out into the joy and tumult of the 
"Official Serenade." 

This year it is splendid. Every moment belated gondo- 
las are arriving like flocks of black swans, with fresh 
quotas of enthusiasm and an increase of gayety and 
confusion. What laughter and fun! The Canal is a 
hopeless jam. Dancing lanterns play light and shade on 
thousands of bright faces, and the gondoliers, in fresh 
white blouses and blue sailor collars, look like shadows 
as they lean silently on their long oars. In the intervals 
of the music there is something weird and frantic to 
both their labor and their language as they agonize 
to protect their beloved boats from scratches and 
smashes and at the same time retain positions of van- 
tage in this ice-floe of a tangle as the barca struggles 
forward a few difficult yards to its next point of seren- 
ade. There are ten or a dozen of these serenade-points, 
and at each the writhing flotilla pauses, and singers 
and orchestra provide the entertainment. It is finest 
to be afloat, but, oh, the land! Red-and-green fire 
throws into enormous relief fairylike towers and turrets 
that have figured in song and story for a thousand years; 
and in windows, terraces, balconies, and tops there 
throngs a multitude that none of us may number. Every 
face is turned toward the barca; every handkerchief 



VENICE 303 

waves our way. An occasional searchlight darts im- 
partially over them and us, picks out a spot in sudden 
brilliance and as suddenly drops it back into blacker 
obscurity. But in that brief flashing, scattered friends 
have discovered friends, and gondolas are started inch- 
ing toward each other, and presently parties are joined 
and ice boxes uncovered. After covertly studying the 
apparently aimless movements of our own gondola I 
finally unearthed a dark conspiracy in the reunion line 
that interested only Paolo, our gondolier, and an occa- 
sional crony at a neighboring oar. Paolo's face and man- 
ners are innocence itself, but his guile is fathoms deep. 
We could not understand why he did not get us nearer 
to the barca, the universal objective, until we saw the 
bottle pass between him and a raven-haired, flashing- 
toothed athlete at the nearest oar and surprised the 
quick greeting and low, musical laugh of congratula- 
tion and content. But who minds, with Venice a festa ! 
And Venice is Paolo's — not ours, alas ! 

Night on the Grand Canal ! What a realm of witchery ! 
"The horns of elfland faintly blowing." What lullaby 
could soothe more sweetly than the dip of the oar or the 
soft plash of the dark water under the gondola's prow! 
The charm of unreality invests the shadowy, spiritual- 
ized palaces rising like silver wraiths from the quiver- 
ing stream. The summer moon touches each carven 
arch and column, each stone-lace balcony, each fretted 
embrasure, each delicate ogive window and sculptured 



304 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

capital, and lo, a magician's wand has reared a dream- 
land of unearthly beauty! 

In the soft and odorous darkness the birds that love 
this Venice are securely nesting — the gulls, that in 
winter whirl up the canals with harsh clamors of the 
coming storms, are now at rest along the beaches of 
their blue Adriatic; the swallows and pigeons are sleep- 
ing among the red tiles of the crooked gables; the spar- 
rows are aloft among the mulberry-trees of the Giudecca 
and the sycamores of the Public Gardens; the canaries 
are dim spots in fragrant magnolia-trees or in spreading 
beds of purple oleander; and the ortolans, robins, and 
blackbirds nestle among azaleas and the heavy festoons 
of banksias. All their music now is hushed, and they 
are as mute and soundless to-night as were their awe- 
struck sires, long centuries since, when gentle St. Fran- 
cis read them his offices under the cypresses of Del 
Deserto. 

The night is fragrant with the breath of roses, carna- 
tions, and camellias from palace gardens and with spicy 
honeysuckle from the neighboring Zattere. Visions of 
stirring romance and adventure crowd in on the mind. 
Down the pebbly paths of yonder garden surely some 
lover has just passed, brave in velvet doublet and silken 
hose, from laying his roses at the satin-slippered feet 
of his lady! Presently he will drift this way in his 
cushioned gondola and the soft night winds will bear 
her the mellow throb of his guitar and many a plaintive 



;?*' 




VENICE, GRAND CANAL FROM THE PIAZZETTA 



VENICE 305 

sigh of love and Venice. But hush ! from out that old 
black Watergate, in bravo's cloak and with muffled oar, 
who bears the helpless lady away through the deep 
shadows under the garden wall ? Hard with your oar, 
my gondolier! A purse of golden ducats if you speed 
me to San Marco! I shall slip this scribbled note into 
the Lion's Mouth! Ho, for the vengeance of The Ten! 
If it were day, what a different scene we should have 
on this twisting sea-serpent of a Grand Canal. Venice 
would then be a sparkling vision resplendent with every 
sea charm, tinted with pinks and opals and pearls, and 
as changeful and full of caprice as any other coquette. 
Instead of this spangle of stars above, we should have 
a vast expanse of pale-blue sky, cloudless and glittering, 
and the misty reflections that now sink faintly deep 
down into these dark waters would vanish before a 
stream so azure and brilliant that it would seem as if a 
portion of the sky above had been cut and fitted between 
the palace fronts below. And how these mellow old 
churches and houses would glow and their wavering 
shadows shake in the stream! The exquisite traceries 
on balcony, arch, and column would seem carven of 
ivory, and from under the red-tiled eaves grim heads of 
stone would stare down over sculptured cornices and 
peep out through delicate quatrefoils and creamy folia- 
tions. And into these wonder-palaces the eager sun 
would peer to see the lofty ceilings all frescoed and gilded, 
the floors of colored marbles, the carven furniture and 



306 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

faded rich hangings, and the deep and arched recesses 
that overlook the gardens in the rear. And what gar- 
dens! Mellow brick walls festooned in pale-blue wis- 
taria and lined with hedges of white thorn, a solemn 
cypress in either corner, clumps of fig-trees and mul- 
berry and golden magnolia, airy grapevine pergolas of 
slender, osier-bound willow, little paths snugly bor- 
dered with box, trellises of gorgeous roses, and here and 
there some antique statue or rude stone urn half hid- 
den in color masses of scarlet pomegranates and snowy 
lilies. 

The day-life of this famed waterway is very gay and 
picturesque. Here is both energy and idleness, and jolly 
friendships and laughter and light-heartedness. Deep- 
laden market scows pass ponderously by, piled high with 
fruits and vegetables, the rowers singing at their oars 
or shouting voluble greetings. Fishermen step slowly 
along, balancing baskets on their heads. Swarthy, black- 
eyed women, in dark skirts and gay neckerchiefs and 
with mauve-colored shawls falling gracefully from head 
to waist, throng the riva shops and bargain over pur- 
chases with violent gestures and eager earnestness. 
Priests returning from mass in rusty black cassocks 
loiter among the noisy groups and are received with 
profound bows and reverent touches of the cap. Husky, 
barefooted girl water-carriers, known as the bigolanti, 
stride by with copper vessels hanging from the yoke 
across their shoulders and offer you a supply for a 



VENICE 307 

soldo. Up the intersecting canals endless processions 
are passing over the arching bridges, and you pause, 
perhaps, to observe the varied life from a place by the 
rail: girl bead-stringers with wooden trays full of tur- 
quoise bits; garrulous pleasure parties off for the Lido; 
laboring boatmen, breaking out into song; old men and 
women shuffling along to gossip and quarrel around the 
carven well-heads of the little campi; and now and then 
some withered old aristocrat on his way to have coffee 
and chess at Florian's and then a solemn smoke over 
the "Gazetta di Venezia" before the Caffe Orientale 
in the warm morning sun of the riva of the Schiavoni. 

How well the Foscari Palace, there, looks by night. 
The Foscari Palace — poor old Foscari ! It is a sad 
but glowing chapter his name recalls. Here lived the 
great Doge, the least serene of all their Serenities. 
Grown old in power and worn with foreign wars, his 
heart broke over the treason of his worthless son, and 
the helpless, sobbing old man, no longer of use, was 
deposed by The Ten in his tottering age. The very next 
day he died — and there, in that palace. Just now, 
when the red-fire glowed, a pale campanile stood out 
of the gloom to the right and beyond the palace; that 
is where they buried him, in the church of the Frari. 
With belated reverence and remorseful at having dishon- 
ored him a few hours since, they proceeded to make his- 
tory in Venice with the splendor of his obsequies. They 
clothed him in cloth of gold, set his ducal cap upon his 



308 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

head, buckled on his golden spurs, and laid his great 
sword by his side. And thus in solemn pomp, attended 
by nobles and lighted by countless tapers, the pageant 
passed out of San Marco, crossed the Rialto, and came at 
last to the church of the Frari. And there what is left 
of Doge Foscari lies to this day. It is not a poor place 
to be in, either. The bones of Titian and Canova are 
beside him, a Titian masterpiece glorifies the choir, and 
on the opposite wall are two altar pieces of Bellini's so 
lovely as to mark the very zenith of Venetian art. 

A pause in the music of the serenade brings us sud- 
denly back to the Venice of to-night. A vast scramble 
is in progress. We jostle and scrape forward another 
few yards. The barca sends a light hose-spray to right, 
left, and in front in a desperate effort to clear a passage. 
Dilatory or helpless gondoliers are lightly sprinkled, 
and all those of us who a moment since had been envy- 
ing their good positions now basely give way to howls 
of joy. No use to struggle: all gondoliers are alike in 
such a crush. A champion Castellani is no better than 
Paolo, if he is strong enough to bend copper centesimi 
pieces between thumb and finger. Presently we stop. 
The tumult rages, good-naturedly and jolly, as the 
jockeying goes on for improved positions. And then 
there falls a sudden silence. A tenor is singing the 
"Cielo e Mar" of "La Gioconda." You lie at full 
length on the cushions, the gondola lifting slowly with an 
indolent sway, and under the spell of the dreamy, 



VENICE 309 

witching music you watch the smoke of your cigar as it 
drifts up and over and out and away toward the little 
streets in the dark. 

Ah, little streets of Venice; under whatever name of 
calle or corto or salizzada, you are just the same — 
bedraggled and delightful! What rare surprises are 
always reserved for each revisit — an overlooked door- 
way, a balcony, some sculptured detail! If the house- 
fronts are plastered and patched — still they are 
picturesquely discolored. If the fantastic windows are 
out of plumb the gay shutters, nevertheless, are charm- 
ingly faded and there are pretty faces behind the bars. 
The roofs let in the rain — but how rookish and rick- 
ety they are. The battered doors are low — but they 
have knockers that are ponderous and imposing. Name 
plates are surprisingly large and keyholes deep and 
cavernous. The stirrup-handled bell- wires run almost 
to the tiny iron balconies, away up under the oval win- 
dows of the eaves — those little balconies that for ages 
have never refused sympathetic regard for the hum of 
slippered feet on the stone pavements below. And there 
are weathered store-fronts with corrugated iron shut- 
ters and gilt signs on black boards; and under your feet 
in the pavement are odd little slits for water to run off 
in, that remind you of openings in letter-drops at home. 
There, too, are the shops whose modest output ar- 
rays the Venetian poor to such advantage, and there 
are the stores and markets where they bargain for 



310 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

frittole of white flour and oil, or polenta of ground corn, 
and personally pick out their sardines at ten for a penny, 
or indulge in a fine brunrino as large as a trout. There 
one sees picturesque lanterns and gay little window- 
boxes full of flowers away up among the chimneys and 
tin waterpipes. The rooms, perhaps, seem dark and 
gloomy to us of modern houses, but you stop with a 
thrill of delight at the happiness in the voice that carols a 
gay air from "Traviata" somewhere in their depths, and 
you look up with a smile at the bright bird that loves 
that dark cage. Some carping and fussy visitors may 
compare these rude homes to the dungeons under the 
"Leads" beyond the Bridge of Sighs, but how could they 
consistently be other than they are, venerable and dirty, 
with splotches of paint and charcoal markings and half- 
effaced pencil-drawings, of cracked plaster full of holes, 
and all toned down by time and weather to a uniform 
mellow gray! Of course, such critics accept, with all 
Italy, the proud ones with the marble tablets that tell 
that Marco Polo lived there, or Petrarch, or Titian, or 
Garibaldi, but the nameless and undistinguished many 
are quite as worth preserving. Thus one appreciates the 
inspiration of the authorities and applauds their indus- 
try in profusely tacking up those little ovals of blue tin 
with the jealous warning in white letters, " Divieto di 
Affisione" — that is, "Don't spoil these walls with 
placards ! " So, peace, harping Philistine, to whom no- 
thing is ever hallowed ! Though your emotions are thin 



VENICE 311 

and your enthusiasms a-chill, respect these little by- 
ways; and if not for themselves, then for where they 
bring you — to fascinating curiosity shops of the anti- 
quarians up the back courts; to charming campi where 
you stand by graven well-heads, wonderwist in the 
lengthening shadows of historic churches; to lichen- 
grown bridges, themselves pictures, arched over sunny 
canals overhung by gabled windows and flanked by gar- 
den walls pale blue with wistaria; or (could you have for- 
gotten?) to nothing less than the great Piazza itself 
and glittering San Marco, the supreme jewel-casket of 
the world. 

But the wistful "Cielo e Mar" is ended, and we move 
along to opposite the Accademia, treasure-temple of 
Venetian art. You uncovered just then, my comrade of 
the night, and out of reverence to the Titian Assump- 
tion, I dare say. I uncovered, too, but it was to the 
madonnas and saints of Giovanni Bellini. Do you know 
them well? No? Not the Santa Conversazione? Ah, 
then life still holds a delight in reserve for you. 

A sudden great and universal hush has fallen on canal 
and shore. Another tenor, sweet and vibrant as a bell, 
breathes that tenderest of all serenades, the one from 
" DonPasquale." At all times irresistible, it seems doubly 
so now. The faces that you see are grave and eager and 
transported. The silence and rapt attention is a tribute 
beyond words to composer and singer; and where else 
but in Italy would a multitude hush to a whisper when 



312 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

music sounds, and break into wild tumult when it ceases? 
A few weeks here, and one comes to understand that 
music is the very breath and life of these people. The 
vagabond Venetian, penniless but happy, comes out of 
his doze in a corner of a sunny riva and before his mouth 
has settled from its yawn it is rounded into a song. A 
bottle of cheap wine, a loaf of bread, and a guitar pro- 
vide joy enough for an army in the family parties of the 
poor that float out on to the lagoon in rough market 
gondolas at sunset. Verdi and Rossini make work light 
for women, walk to business with the men, and hum 
comfort and courage all day. And so one needs to be 
discreet and silent when a solo begins or be prepared for 
an instant and tempestuous rebuke. But there seems 
little need for a warning to-night, with the hand of 
Venice so strong upon us. 

Between serenades one takes his ease on the cushions 
and looks about on the people around him. Some one 
begins to whistle the jolly old "Carnival of Venice," 
and it is promptly taken up on all sides, bolder spirits 
even venturing upon the variations. A German gives us 
the Fatherland's version, about the hat that had three 
corners. An enormous Spaniard near at hand bellows 
a fragment of "I Pagliacci," and is thunderously ap- 
plauded. His friends, embarrassed but elated, urge 
him on to a second effort, which is received with indif- 
ference. On his third attempt he is hissed. Such is the 
caprice of an open-air audience in Italy. 



VENICE 313 

The jolly stag party in the gondola to the right presses 
upon us the hospitality of the capacious hamper, which 
we decline with a thousand thanks and in gestures more 
intelligible than our pidgin-Italian. At our elbow two 
slender American women in black provide excellent 
eavesdropping entertainment. Here is talk to our liking, 
thrilling with the names of men of fame who knew and 
loved this Venice. " Just over there, Helen, is the palace 
where Browning lived and died. What an elaborate 
place for a poet! Ho wells lived next door, you know, 
when he wrote his 'Venetian Life.' These places are 
ever so much finer than the one farther down where 
Goldoni wrote his comedies. Oh, don't you know the 
Goldoni house? It is this side the Rialto, just opposite 
the Byron Palace with the blue-striped gondola posts." 
"I think," says the other, "that the memories are quite 
as rich farther on. At the Hotel Europa, you remember, 
Chateaubriand once lived, and so did George Eliot; 
and from there you can see the Danieli where George 
Sand and Alfred de Musset sought happiness but only 
found misery." At mention of the Europa the face of 
her friend is transfigured and our own hearts beat high 
in sympathy with the reverence of the lowered voice: 
"Wagner wrote 'Tristan und Isolde' at the Europa. He 
died in the palace where the three trees stand, away down 
beyond the Rialto." Oh, deathless Venice! Oh, uni- 
versal Love! They marvel at this elfin world — the 
English father, mother, and son in the gondola ahead. 



314 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

"It is a mode of mind." 

"Or a form of hypnosis; a psychological phase." 

The boy turns from the distant fairy candles of San 
Marco and regards them with amaze and disapproval. 
His enthusiasms are keen and a-quiver and the fresh- 
ness of life's morning is on his face. "Don't analyze," 
he says. "Just breathe it and feel it." The parents 
exchange amused glances and smile indulgently. " ' Out 
of the mouth of babes and sucklings,'" quotes the 
father under his breath; but we know, and they know, 
that they have been answered. 

Gorgeous silks and priceless tapestries and rare 
Oriental stuffs have doubtless often hung from the bal- 
conies of the palace on the right in the great gala days 
of the wonderful past when the Carnival lasted half 
a year. The law had not yet ruled that all gondolas must 
be a uniform solemn black, and the cradle-like boat of to- 
day, for all its brass dolphins and carven scenes from the 
"Gerusalemme Liberata," would have cut a sorry figure 
beside the sumptuous ones of an earlier time, with their 
mountings of silver and gold, profusion of rich colors, 
upholstery of enormous value, and bearing owners of 
fabulous wealth whose names were written in the city's 
Book of Gold. Ah, those were the triumphant days 
when foreign princes waited, half a hundred at a time, 
to have the judgment of the Venetian Senate on the 
affairs of their states; when royalty was no unusual 
spectacle on the Piazza of San Marco; when the argo- 



VENICE 315 

sies of the world, "with portly sail," came to anchor in 
these waters; when Dante and Petrarch were received 
as ambassadors; when the Admirable Crichton would 
be tossed a hundred ducats for amusing the Senate with 
an extemporized Latin oration; and when his Serenity, 
the Doge, on Ascension Day fared forth in dazzling 
splendor to espouse the sea from the throne of his sump- 
tuous Bucentoro. The glory of that old and powerful 
Venice can never pass from the memory of men. Whole 
libraries preserve it in imperishable record. It is inter- 
esting, too, to note how it affected bygone visitors just 
as it does us to-day — as when one turns the pages of 
John Evelyn's "Diary" and smiles to see how soon it 
was after his "portmanteau" had been "visited" at the 
Dogana customs-offices that he pronounced the Mer- 
ceria to be "one of the most delicious streets in the 
world for the sweetness of it," and learned with amaze 
of the skill and rapidity of Venetian artisans who, while 
King Henry III of England was one day visiting the 
Arsenal, built a galley, rigged, and finished it for 
launching, and cast a cannon of sixteen thousand pounds 
and put it on board, — and all while his Majesty was 
having luncheon. There was, indeed, a great deal of the 
marvelous about men who could contrive glass goblets 
so sensitive as to betray the presence of poison, or who 
could at so early an age make such exquisite books as 
the Aldine classics, to the despair of publishers for hun- 
dreds of years to follow. 



316 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

> Just now, in the fitful glare of red-lights, hundreds of 
eager Venetian faces, transported asalways by the spirit 
of Carnival, were seen in excited groupings in every nook 
and corner of the neighboring fondamente. One thinks 
how different is the present scene from those these peo- 
ple are accustomed to look upon on other nights. You 
would find them then in the little family squares whose 
corners are shrines of the Virgin set with flowers and il- 
lumined with candles. Husband and wife will, perhaps, 
have spent the early evening in gallery seats at the Teatro 
Goldoni, and Giovanni, weary with a long day at the 
traghetto, would have finished thumbing the headlines 
of the day's "1/ Adriatico" and would now have his 
friends about him, and Maria would let the bambino 
stay up a little longer, and all would feast with pro- 
digious merriment and satisfaction on the ever-popular 
soupe au pidocchi, — which is mussel-broth flavored 
with spices, — to be followed by Chioggia eels and white 
wine of Policella. Neighboring women would, of course, 
drop in for their dearly loved gossip, hatless, with silver 
pins fastening their blue-black hair, coral beads around 
their necks, and draping shawls thrown over their 
bright waists. And presently some withered old coffee- 
roaster would drag himself in with his fragrant ovens 
glowing, the bright flames leaping, and toffee-venders 
would plead for sales. With the ease of sleight-of-hand 
a guitar suddenly makes its appearance out of nowhere 
and everybody enthusiastically joins in some haunt- 



VENICE 317 

ing, languorous, dreamy villotte dear to the hearts of 
Venetians. Just around the corner lounging groups 
would be scattered before cafe doors and voices would 
be humming in low, eager talk. The usual wrangling 
and bargaining would be in progress at the cooking- 
stalls piled high with fish and garlic, polenta, cabbages, 
and apples. In near-by trattorie with sanded floors art- 
istic bohemia, with ambition numbed by the latest Afri- 
can sirocco, battens on bowls of macaroni in a turmoil of 
smoke and confusion. In the dark interior of a neighbor- 
ing wineshop one would find the wonderful golden- 
browns that Rembrandt loved, as a single oil lamp 
glows on the weathered faces of a circle of old cronies. 
And somewhere, just at hand, a gondolier's weird and 
fascinating cry of "Ah, Stall!" would be heard; and all 
about them Venice would be crooning her ancient lull- 
aby in the ceaseless, low lapping of water on stone steps. 
All together and forward once more, to opposite the 
church of the Salute. We have lost our recent neighbors 
and have an entirely new set. The changes in the 
grouping are like the shuffling units of a kaleidoscope. 
A brilliant company is gathered on the balconies of 
Desdemona's Palace, but Othello is not among them — 
another piece of calculated devilty, no doubt, on the 
part of the crafty Iago! Still, Portia is there from 
flowery Belmont and with her are Jessica and Lorenzo. 
The music is now from melodious old " Dinorah," charm- 
ingly rendered and just as soothing as the first time 



318 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

one ever heard it. The Salute stands out impressively 
in her great domes and elaborate spirals. It is beautiful, 
of course, by night, but then if it were day we might run 
inside and revel in Titians and Tintorettos. The fan- 
tastic columns fade and flash as the red and green fires 
smoulder or flame, and the gilded Fortuna on the dome 
of the adjoining Dogana catches some of the glitter 
and generously sends it on to the Seminario in the rear. 

Some one calls my name from among the oleanders of 
the Britannia terrace, just opposite. What a delight to 
be known by name in this charmed city ! I look up at 
the adjoining hotel and there are the windows of my 
room, and I know that within in the dark my clothing 
and articles of travel lie about. With secret wonder I 
whisper to myself that I, after all the years of waiting 
and hoping, I am actually a part of Venice! 

One might think there could not possibly be any more 
gondolas in all the city outside of to-night's tremendous 
gathering; but even now you could find them floating 
lazily about the lagoons, or away out toward the Lido 
where the moist winds are ruffling the water and the 
distant Bride of the Sea seems only some sort of bright 
exhalation. Theirs is a languorous and listless drifting 
and their dim lamps waver slowly like glowworms. 
Little need there for the musical wails of "Ah, Premi!" 
"Ah, Stall!" Little of such complaint as Byron made 
that gondoliers are songless, for one could not ask for 
more plaintive and soothing melody than the low, pas- 



VENICE 319 

sionate crooning of the barefooted boy at the oar. And, 
perhaps, in the musky dark of silent canals more 
gondolas than one are even now stealing lightly and 
with love's devious purposes under the fretted balconies 
of the star-eyed daughters of Venice, while Beppo 
muffles his oar to the warning of Tom Moore: — 

"Row gently here, my gondolier; 
So softly wake the tide, 
That not an ear on earth may hear 
Save hers to whom we glide!" 

It seems weeks since, in the cool of this very morning, 
out at the little island of Burano, I lunched under shady 
locusts in the quiet garden of "The Crowned Lion." It 
was a pleasant stop on the way to deserted old Torcello 
— Torcello that mothered Venice, but now sleeps, a 
clutter of grass-grown ruins, in the appalling stillness 
of her weedy canals and thickets of blackberry hedges. 
Within a cable length of where our gondola is now 
resting a black, tarry fishing-bark tugs at anchor. If it 
were day and her sails were set, one could not help being 
delighted over the oranges and reds and blues of her 
patched and weathered canvas, the curve of the elabor- 
ately painted bow, and the spirited air of the curious 
figurehead. Unchanged survivors of the fading Past are 
these sturdy old bragozzi of Chioggia, and one could 
not ask for a braver show than they present when they 
hoist their painted sails to dry in one long line from the 
Public Gardens to the Doge's Palace. 



320 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

It was at Chioggia that we loitered, a few days back, 
and fed on picturesqueness to satiety. We have but 
to close our eyes — and there are the grizzled old fel- 
lows in red berrettas, trousers rolled to their wiry brown 
knees and great hoops of yellow gold in their ears. 
When the midday sun was hottest we found them sit- 
ting in the shade of their fishing-boats' sails, mending 
their nets with wooden bodkins and brown twine. In 
the old days, when the hand of Venice was all-powerful 
in this part of the world, the Chioggians were the gay- 
est and most picturesque people of these islands. Art- 
ists still consider them the purest types of Venetians, 
but they are a sad and melancholy lot now, as if bur- 
dened with the heritage of glorious memories. It seemed 
to me that the old men were the happiest living things 
in Chioggia; then, perhaps, came the boys, then the girls, 
and last of all the women — and the older the women 
the gloomier. The flirt of a sober mantilla is the nearest 
they ever come nowadays to gayety. 

We shall never forget, nor ever want to, that wonder- 
ful sail back from Chioggia to Venice. Listening to the 
music on the Canal to-night the memory of it seems 
compact of dreams, or as the florid cloister-fancy of a 
Middle-Ages monk that we had read in some illum- 
inated old volume bound in vellum and clasped with 
gold. There was all the vitalizing pageantry of sunset 
about us, all the immensity of sky and sea, and many a 
bright little island rising out of the rippling lagoon this 



VENICE 321 

side the marshy wastes. The yellow strips of Pellestrina 
and Malamocco topped the waves in two long lines, like 
half -submerged reefs of gold. Above was a vast dome 
of turquoise glinted with pinks and grays, and with here 
and there a little heap of snowy clouds. Every phase of 
the wonderful sky was reproduced in the water. The 
sun reflected a second sun of no less ruddy fire which 
burned across the sea in a broad highway of shaking 
light that rolled to our very feet. The piled and fleecy 
clouds were steeped in gold, and bands of purple mists 
across Shelley's Euganean Hills were pierced by it 
through and through. Venice, a mirage of the azure 
sea, rose slowly as we drew nearer, a witchery of towers, 
campaniles, palaces, painted sails, and drifting gon- 
dolas. As the dimming beauty faded with the brief 
Eastern twilight and we were gazing in awe on the en- 
chanting panorama, there suddenly loomed a fresh and 
added glory, for just above the topmost pinnacle of 
stately San Giorgio floated a young summer moon ! 
; Beauty has here an abiding-place. Venice is doubt- 
less a fairer vision now, with its myriad lights, than when 
the only illumination was from flickering tapers before 
the corner shrines of the Virgin. More comfortable it 
surely is than when St. Roche himself was bafHed by 
more than seventy plagues. The jaunty boatman and 
his peerless gondola still charm us, and dustless and 
noiseless the city continues musical with the cheery 
hum of voices and the soft shuffle of feet. In the cool 



322 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

twilight of the churches marvels of sculpture and im- 
mortal canvases still inspire and enthrall. Time has 
added new charms to the marbles of bell tower, church, 
and palace, and nature still employs a witchery scarce 
equaled elsewhere in decking the Sea City with flowers. 
From the water-lilies of the Brenta, the flaming begonia 
trumpets of the Giudecca, the pale sea-lavender of the 
Dead Lagoon, the rose-pergolas and oleander-cloisters 
of San Lazzaro, the primroses and sea-holly of the Lido 
wooded with odorous acacias and white-flowered catal- 
pas, and carpeted with crimson poppies and the snowy 
Star of Bethlehem, away out to the sand dunes and lush 
grasses of Triporti, there continually rises an inexhaust- 
ible incense of fragrance and beauty. 

The serenade is nearly ended. Anticipating the com- 
ing rush at the San Marco Piazza, a word to Paolo 
starts us laboriously toward the outskirts of the flotilla. 
From the Royal Gardens to the molo is a matter of only 
a dozen plunges or so of the stout oar, spurred by an 
offer of extra lire for extra speed. Off flies our gondola, 
frowning as superbly as ever did swan in the eye of 
Keats. We dart alongside the wet quay beyond the 
Bridge of Sighs and one of those superannuated old 
gondoliers called rampini earns a pourboire by steadying 
the prow as we jump ashore at the base of the column of 
San Marco's winged lion. St. Theodore looks down plac- 
idly from the vantage-point above his crocodile as we 
pass between these storied pillars — "fra Marco e 



VENICE 323 

Todaro," as the Venetians say when they mean "be- 
tween pillar and post." The piazzetta is already 
crowded and our hope of a table at Florian's is dwindling. 
Never did the stately Sansovino Library or the airy 
colonnades and warm Moorish marbles of the Palace 
of the Doges look finer, but past them we speed with no 
time for the scantiest of glances at the famous quatre- 
foils and the thirty-six pillars with the renowned cap- 
itals, and in we hurry to the broad and glorious piazza 
and its flooding of light and life. Florian's is in a state 
of siege. Every table seems taken and hungry people by 
hundreds are clamoring for places. The Quadri, across 
the square, would probably have had to content us had 
not the efficacy of frequent past tips saved the day, and 
my nightly waiter welcomes us with his dry and mirth- 
less smile and slips us into a snug harbor under the very 
guns of the enemy. My companions are officers of the 
American squadron now lying at Triest and they pass 
their professional opinion that the strategy was capital. 
But though officers, they are young officers, and Venice 
has captured them hand and foot. Scarcely have we 
completed our supper-order when the flowing strains of 
the Coronation March from "The Prophet" roll in from 
the molo in the barca's good night, and, as if it were 
riding in on that splendid musical tide, the noisy, jub- 
ilant host of the festa comes pouring upon us. 

And what a fascinating spectacle does this grand, 
unrivaled old square then present! Were Byron here 



324 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

to-night he would still have to call it "the pleasant 
place of all festivity." No chance now to study the de- 
signs in this vast flooring of marble or to coax a half- 
persuaded pigeon on to your shoulder. In every part of 
its two hundred yards of arcaded length, set with storied 
architecture so inspiring by beauty and association that 
it moved even the self-contained Mr. Howells to ex- 
claim, "It makes you glad to be living in this world," 
and under the blaze of its rimming of clustered lights 
and shops and thronged cafes, there storms and chatters 
a vigorous, cheery, light-hearted multitude fresh from 
the stimulus of the glittering water pageant. It comes 
in through the piazzetta with such a rush that one looks 
for the band and band-stand, too, to be swept the full 
length of the square and out under the arches of the 
Royal Palace. Such laughing and uproar ! Such a sirocco 
of gestures and hailstorm of crackling exclamations! 
This human tidal wave of the Adriatic pours down the 
middle, seethes along the edges, and swirls and eddies 
in the remotest corners. One sees in it happy, voluntary 
exiles from almost every part of the world, but to-night 
the festa-loving Venetians predominate. Every local 
type is here; from the languid patrician, come in from 
her country estate and now sipping anise-water here at 
Florian's, and the Vapid and scented fashionable youths 
with carnations in their buttonholes, to the flashing, 
black-eyed shop-girls with red roses in their crisp black 
hair and graceful mantilla shawls dropping back from 



VENICE 325 

their tossing heads, and the vigorous, smiling artisans, 
easy and jaunty of gait, with soft hats pushed back at 
every rakish angle on their curly heads. How happy and 
transported Maria is to-night, in her new black skirt 
and crimson bodice, and how the sultry red smoulders 
through the olive of her cheeks as her little hands whirl 
in a tempest of gestures and the lightnings of excite- 
ment play in her midnight eyes ! And no less carried away 
is Giovanni, beside her, — proud as Colleoni on the 
big bronze horse, — though he lets her do most of the 
talking and contents himself with approving in quick, 
expressive shrugs. All classes of society are with us — 
"rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief"; and old Shy- 
lock himself, who was most of these, "dreaming of money- 
bags." Scraps of gay, slurring song are continually 
bubbling over and flashes of wit and snappy repartees go 
flying to and fro. Flower-girls thread the press and in- 
sist upon pinning boutonnieres on the men, and street 
merchants move about offering everything from curios 
to caramel-on-a-stick. A crowd gathers about a blind 
old troubadour thrumming a dirty guitar and struggling 
to force his rusty voice along the melodious course of 
some popular villotte, and presently he will be led among 
the tables before the cafes and centesimi and silver lire 
will jingle into his ragged hat. 

It is little enough to say that no scene ever had a more 
romantic setting. The quaint old Venetian quatrain 
does this famed spot scant justice: — 



326 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

"In St. Mark's Place three standards you descry, 
And chargers four that seem about to fly; 
There is a timepiece which appears a tower, 
And there are twelve black men who strike the hour." 

In the moonlight the sculptured and arcaded old 
buildings glow like mellow ivory around three sides of 
it, and it is warmed and vitalized by bustling cafes and 
brilliant shop windows set with tempting snares of art- 
ful jewelry and cunningly wrought glass. Strong and 
proud the great Campanile towers upward into the 
clear night, away above the tops of the three tall flag- 
staffs. The sumptuous Cathedral, in its wealth of glow- 
ing color and lavish adornment, makes one think of a 
vast heap of glittering treasure piled up by returning 
Venetian pirates in answer to the accustomed question, 
"What have you brought back for Marco?" One can 
scarcely take his eyes off its lofty, yawning portals, its 
gates of bronze, its forest of columns, its sweeping arches 
glowing in every color of brilliant mosaics, its profusion 
of creamy sculptures, its canopied saints and statued 
pinnacles and its great Byzantine domes billowing into 
the purple sky. On the ancient clock tower of the Mer- 
ceria the fierce winged lion of St. Mark's holds a resol- 
ute paw on the open Gospels, and the bronze bellringers 
swing twelve ponderous blows and hang up the hour of 
midnight on a dial of blue and gold. As they pause at 
the completion of their labors and look down on the sea 
of faces turned toward them from the Piazza they seem 



VENICE 327 

so nearly galvanized into life that it would scarcely sur- 
prise one to hear them shout, "What news of the argos- 
ies of Antonio?" 

With the sparkling beauty of Venice so irresistible it 
is a terrible temptation to my companions to hurry 
straight back to Triest and come over with their battle- 
ship and, like dashing naval Lochinvars, force an es- 
pousal of this incomparable Bride of the Sea. Vain 
thought ! It is Venice herself who has always done the 
espousing; fully to possess her it must be on her own 
conditions of complete surrender. 

How inevitable it seems at night that you must take 
the step ; must cry out, once and for all, to fellow voy- 
agers on the Dead Lagoons of Life: "Ho, brothers! No 
more of the drab and wretched wastes for me! I am for 
beauty and romance — * in Venice, all golden, to dream ! ' 
I shall dwell in this enchanted realm of dolce far niente 
and float with my gondola into the final Sunset. Com- 
panions on Life's waters, ' Ah, Stall '!" 



PARIS 

MIDNIGHT TO 1 A.M. 






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PARIS 

MIDNIGHT TO 1 A.M. 

Like a practiced coquette, Paris, the world's enchant- 
eresse, reserves for the supreme moments of midnight 
her rarest resources of gayety and charm. Her last 
laughs are her best. And decidedly, she is dangerous 
when laughing. Beyond question, her glowing eyes at 
midnight are wonderfully sweet and beguiling; and hers 
is the skill to touch the bright hours with the most de- 
lectable couleur de rose. There is satisfaction for each 
desire. "Would monsieur sup?" The most amazing 
cuisine in the world awaits your pleasure. "Would mon- 
sieur stroll ?" The sparkling lights and rustling trees 
of the fairest of boulevards fairly drag you their way. 
"Would he drive?" You raise your hand; a fiacre dashes 
up; and soon the Bois and the Champs-Ely sees, cool, 
scented, dewy, receive you gladly to their enchanting 
retreats. "Would he join a revel — just a little one?" 
Cabarets, cafes-chantants, bals publics were designed for 
no other purpose. "Would he look on at life?" "Gar- 
gon vite! Une demi-tasse — une; sur la terrasse!" — and 
heart could not ask for a madder, merrier, more absorb- 
ing spectacle than that which will whirl and surge by the 



332 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

very edge of your little round table. "Eh? Monsieur 
has a fancy for nature and solitude? Mori Dieul C'est 
un original, celui-ld! Mais" — and you will find no- 
where gardens lovelier than those of the Tuileries, ele- 
gant with statues and carpeted with flowers. Thus at 
every point the charmer wins. What is left but sur- 
render? She seems the very Queen of Heart's Desire. 

Of course, the night side of Paris is her most trivial 
side. But then visitors have always refused to take her 
seriously at any time. No matter how many wonderful 
achievements have been crying out to them all day that 
this is one of the most extraordinary and advanced com- 
munities to be found anywhere on the face of the earth, 
still they stubbornly cling to the conviction that all is 
frivolity here and that night is Paris's supreme period 
and pleasure seeking her most conspicuous and charac- 
teristic role. Accustomed to the droll ideas of foreigners, 
and bothering little about them except to find occasional 
amusement, Paris shrugs her shoulders in indifference 
and turns on more lights. Brilliant, charming, and in- 
genious she creates what she prefers — an atmosphere 
of gayety and beauty. And the visiting world purrs 
about her in joy of a fascination it cannot find elsewhere 
and salves its own patriotism with the conclusion that 
this is her principal raison d'etre. 

As a matter of fact, the Parisians are masters of the 
art of living. As their kitchen is the best, so is their 
drawing-room and study. All the affairs of every day 



PARIS 333 

are handled with ease and grace, with imagination and a 
kind of poetic skill that adorns even the ugly and com- 
monplace and invests them with attractiveness and 
charm. The cheery light-heartedness that is a funda- 
mental trait of Parisians converts the life of their streets 
and parks into scenes delightful either to contemplate 
or share. Indeed, they often seem to be only grown-up 
children, so gracefully have they retained the fresh and 
stimulating enthusiasm of youth — so rueful and pouting 
over a rainy day; so exuberant over a bright one. And 
the best of it is that there is an infection to their high 
spirits that passes into the observer and clears his per- 
ception of the folly of worry and depression, and shows 
him the value and availableness of optimism and good 
cheer. Such is the glorious influence of a people whose 
attitude toward life is essentially one of hope and zest. 
No one is going to deny that the Parisian is vain. 
Indeed, his attitude toward the rest of the earth, while 
patient and polite, is at bottom patronizing and even a 
little supercilious. And sometimes, it must be confessed, 
this gets on the visitor's nerves. One cannot give out 
admiration forever and rest content with getting none 
back. It is easy to understand the mood of bitter deri- 
sion into which even so enthusiastic an admirer as 
Edmondo de Amicis fell when he wrathfully wrote: 
"Three hundred * citizens' hang over the side of a bridge 
to see a dog washed; if a drum passes, a crowd collects; 
and a thousand people, in one railway station, make a 



334 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

tremendous uproar by clapping their hands, shouting, 
and laughing because one of the guards of the train has 
lost his hat!" Yet De Amicis came shortly to see that 
this is only the Parisian temperament, which he ad- 
mired in so many other of its manifestations, and that 
under it lie solid qualities of the highest and rarest 
order. So he forgave Paris, as everyone does, and took 
her again to his heart — albeit, I mistrust, with reserva- 
tion and a lingering grain of suspicion and perhaps 
something of the foreign conviction that she is not 
always to be taken quite seriously. 

To the vast majority of visitors Paris by night means 
the boulevards. The beauty of these famed thorough- 
fares, the cosmopolitan and fascinating sea of humanity 
that flows through them, the means of amusement that 
abound, and all the many little refinements of comfort 
and elegance to be seen on every hand place them in a 
class by themselves among the city streets of the world. 
In the matter of virility the life of the boulevards is 
amazing. Every one seems to be at his keenest when he 
walks there. Anticipation is fairly skipping on tiptoe. 
The old boulevardier, the traditional flaneur, has not 
been disappointed of his evening's diverting on-look 
these forty years or more, and he can, therefore, clothed 
and gloved and caned a la mode, proceed with his 
stroll in unhasting dignity, confident that the usual 
amusing spectacle will unfold itself in good time. But 
the new arrivals and the visitors of a few weeks show in 




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PARIS 335 

their eager faces that nothing is going to escape them 
and that a thorough debauch of pleasure is the least they 
propose to make out of all the bewildering light and life 
about them. From the Place de la Concorde to the Place 
de la Republique a laughing, brilliant, light-hearted 
multitude pours along all night with infinite bustle and 
chatter. Between twelve and one o'clock it is at its 
gayest. The theatres and cafes-concerts have emptied 
their audiences into the stream, which is swollen to the 
very curb, and the driveways are whirling with an enor- 
mous outpouring of busses, motors, and cabs. The size 
of the loads the hired victorias and fiacres will accom- 
modate is determined solely by the inclination and inter- 
est of the impertinent fat cocker in the varnished plug 
hat ; and it is nothing to see a conveyance, that ordinarily 
carries but two people, trundling merrily along behind a 
sprung-kneed nag, with a man and several girls piled in- 
side and all waving hands to the crowd with the vastest 
camaraderie imaginable. This is of a piece with the uni- 
versal high spirits and good humor that prevail along 
the boulevards. It is all fun and frolic, and everybody is 
in it. The rows of chairs and tables on the sidewalks 
before the cafes really make the spectators a part of the 
show; and the groups before the artistic little newspaper 
kiosks and the comfortable sitters on the green benches 
along the curb are, in spite of themselves, part and par- 
cel of the big family, with something of the intimacy 
and allied interest of a village street at fair-time. And 



336 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

it always seems fair-time in Paris by night. The pro- 
fusion of lights that have won it the title of "La Ville 
Lumiere" gives it an appearance of being perpetually 
en fete, and the ebullient crowds complete the illusion. 
But the Grand Boulevards have no monopoly of the 
night attractiveness of the city. All over town stretch 
broad, clean streets with shade trees and double lines of 
lights and rows of stone and stucco houses. In the main 
these houses resemble each other rather closely; slate- 
colored, Mansard-roofed, and with shallow iron bal- 
conies running full length of the second, fourth, and 
fifth stories. By night they fairly exhale an atmosphere 
of tranquillity and peace. There are, besides, hundreds 
of beautiful roomy squares, flooded with light and set 
with comfortable benches that are seldom without con- 
tented occupants. Such a notable one as the Place de la 
Concorde is without its equal in any city. It costs the 
three and a quarter millions of people who live in and 
about Paris more than $70,000,000 a year to maintain 
their city's reputation for beauty; and not a sou of it is 
begrudged. For Paris is the whole world to most of 
them, and many a Parisian politician had rather be 
Prefect of the Seine and rule this town than president of 
the whole Republic. And with what reason! "It is a 
world-city," said Goethe, "where the crossing of every 
bridge or every square recalls a great past, and where 
at every street corner a piece of history has been un- 
folded." 



PARIS 337 

Whoever turns from the boulevards for a space will 
learn of other kinds of life that are in full cry at mid- 
night. What of the studio revelries of the Quartier 
Latin? There abound jollity and earnestness and strong 
friendships with few of the gilded accessories of the Rive 
Droite. The brightest of these scenes are often the most 
meagre in setting. A group of jovial, smoking, singing 
companions — and about them an easel and sketching- 
board, a dingy divan, a few battered chairs, a stove in 
the corner with the remains of the last meal, a huddle of 
draperies and hangings, fragments of casts and uncom- 
pleted sketches on the walls, and a corner table piled 
with a dusty litter of squeezed-out paint-tubes, broken 
brushes, magazine illustrations, a dog-eared book or 
two, and a generous strewing of cigarette butts. The 
cleanest things in sight are a freshly scraped palette and 
a sheaf of brushes stuck in a half -filled jar of water. 
With so much of equipment your merry, care-free artist 
squeezes the orange of life to its smallest drop, and cares 
not a sou how the whole world wags, provided all is well 
between the Place de l'Observatoire and the Seine. 

Then, again, were you to pass some pleasant house on 
a quiet avenue where an evening's party is ending, you 
could not help but linger under the windows in delight 
to hear some tender song of Massenet's, some soothing 
berceuse of Ropartz's, a haunting plaint of Saint-Saens 
or a vitalizing torrent of Chaminade's. 

And perhaps where you might most expect just such 



338 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

a scene as this, behind the closely-drawn window drap- 
eries of some handsome apartment, there is gathered 
around a broad green table a group of flushed, excited 
men to whom a hard-eyed croupier is singing the abom- 
inable siren song of "Faites vos jeux," "Les jeuxsont 
faits," "Rienneva plus." It seems quiet and peaceful 
enough. You could scarcely believe that there hangs 
above it the shadow of the little gray Morgue down 
behind Notre-Dame! 

Before returning to the giddy boulevards for a final 
petit-verre and an exchange of pleasantries with cafe 
acquaintances, one likes to finish a cigar in an aimless 
ramble through such placid scenes as these. Not only 
may he so indulge the pleasing diversion of speculating 
over the kinds of home life that go on within these 
houses, but incidentally he escapes the tumult of the 
maelstrom for a few calm moments, and eventually 
sees for himself what a pity it is that so many night 
fascinations should abound in Paris and be enjoyed by 
so few. He may like to draw moral conclusions from 
the peace-loving pigeons nesting in the war-glorifying 
reliefs of the gigantic and towering Arc de Triomphe, or 
take satisfied note of the monuments of the victories of 
peace that dot the broad avenues that radiate from it. 
One such monument is always under the eyes of the 
boulevardiers in the form of that most glorious of all 
temples to music, the Paris Opera House. It is espe- 
cially impressive by night, with the shadows blending 



PARIS 339 

columns and statues in bewildering beauty, and high- 
lights from the street lamps glinting on sculptured bal- 
ustrades and cornices, chalking the edges of half -hidden 
arches and penciling the delicate detail of medallions 
and reliefs. Nor, it must be allowed, are devotees often 
wanting for that fair Greek temple of La Madeleine — 
so chaste and of such imposing dignity, rimmed with 
giant columns and embowered in verdure. 

After like fashion does night enhance the beauty 
of the great, rambling Louvre — though this may only 
be Diana's way of paying tribute to the Arts and of 
venerating the sacred shrine of a sister divinity, that 
serenest and sublimest of goddesses, the Venus de 
Milo. There is certainly something of almost ethereal 
comeliness by night to those long vistas of columns and 
arcades, to the shadowy sculptures of the pavilions, the 
lines of graceful caryatids and the blustering triumphal 
groups of the pediments. One might fancy the Louvre 
wearing a look of grave disapproval over the hubbub 
that drifts in from the boulevards were he not aware 
how carefully it treasures so many pictorial skeletons 
in its own closets. Boucher and Watteau are on record 
with infinitely worse scenes than these. But now it has 
the appearance of some palace capitol of Shadowland; 
and before it in perfect sympathy lies its beautiful 
dream-kingdom, the hushed and fragrant gardens of the 
Tuileries, — fair as the golden Hesperides, — fresh 
with fountains, silvered in patches with little shining 



340 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

lakes, marquetried in flowers, and peopled with 
shadowy forms of pallid marble. 

From a Seine bridge one notes the wizard liberties 
the reckless moon takes with the colonnaded dome of 
the sombre Pantheon. And, more astonishing still, the 
magic tricks it plays with the adorned and enormous 
bulk of Notre Dame — now veiling, now revealing mas- 
sive buttress and delicate rose-window, some recessed 
arch tucked full of sculptured saints all snugly foot to 
head, or a goblin band of hideous gargoyles that leer 
ghoulishly down from out the purple haze of the towers. 
One could well wish, however, for a closer view of that 
exquisite survivor of the Valois kings, the peerless Tour 
Saint- Jacques, at the first sight of which the most in- 
different exclaim with delight over so rare a vision of 
grace and lacelike beauty, over long slender windows 
delicately foliated, over traceries of stone like petrified 
festoons, and an ensemble so suggestive of some dainty 
ivory-carving a million times enlarged. With a glimpse 
of the round pointed towers of the dread Conciergerie 
comes something of the horror of the days of the Terror, 
and one fancies ghastly forms beckoning him at the win- 
dows with white, frightened faces and hanging hair and 
eyes with hideous rings, and delicate praying hands up- 
held to passers-by, and iron bars clutched by the little 
white fingers of Marie Antoinette and her court. 

From such a gruesome fancy it is a relief to turn and 
look down on the dark rippling Seine and watch the 



PARIS 341 

wavy ribbons of light swim quiveringly out from the 
bridge lamps. And there in the cool of their stone 
wharves, still panting and perspiring from the violent ex- 
ertions of the earlier evening, lie the fat little open-deck 
steamers that haul the lovers home. For many a happy 
pair this day has been dining deliriously a deux under 
the gay terrace awnings of one or another of the roman- 
tic, flower-embowered inns that overlook the river 
all the way from Charenton to gray old Argenteuil, 
where Heloi'se in her nunnery fought her losing fight 
against love and the memory of Abelard. Some of 
these steamers appear alarmingly apoplectic, so that 
one wonders how they have managed to wheeze safely 
under all those low arches with the garlanded "N's" 
and past so many formidable buttresses all sculptured 
cap-a-pie. 

If now you turn and look upward and about you, lo! 
the heaped and cluttered roofs of Paris — the most 
fantastic and romantic of spectacles! It is singular, 
almost startling, to see how they stare down as though 
to study you, and with apparently as much curious in- 
tentness and dark suspicion as you do them. There 
must be whole volumes of stories to each of them. Out 
of the ponderous Mansard roofs impudent, leering little 
dormer windows wink down and squint up, each with 
his rakish peaked roof like a jockey cap over one ear. 
And up above even them are whole groves of blackened 
chimney-stacks leaning all askew, like barricades for 



342 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

sansculottes. You look expectantly ^to see miserable 
white Pierrot come forth, guitar in hand, and sing sadly 
of Colombine to the pallid moon. 

Suddenly, to the right, the lift of a cloud unveils the 
bronze dome of the solemn Hotel des Invalides, and 
your heart beats high with thoughts of the marvelous 
man who lies under it among his tattered battle-flags 
on a pavement inscribed with his victories. It is a so- 
bering reflection that now in the darkness and stillness 
of that chamber the only eyes that are looking down on 
his porphyry sarcophagus are those of the bronze Christ 
that hangs on the cross in the little side chapel of the 
tomb. 

"Tout-Paris," as smart society calls itself, spends the 
early summer at Trouville. All the most exclusive names 
of the two- volume Bottin are then inscribed in the hotel 
registers of this recherche resort, nor are their owners to 
be looked for in town again until long after the derbies 
have reappeared in the hatters' windows. But while 
Fashion is flirting on the beaches and betting on the 
little wooden horses of the Trouville Casino, what is 
left at home after "All Paris" has gone is quite suf- 
ficient to keep the boulevards lively. What walking- 
space remains is eagerly employed by the tens of thou- 
sands of visitors. One may not, therefore, see the 
fashionable show of winter, but he finds an acceptable 
substitute in the vivacious summer throngs with their 
perpetual atmosphere of Mardi Gras. 



PARIS 343 

As midnight wanes and the multitude waxes, it is 
amusing to speculate upon the scattered sources of the 
innumerable tiny streams that come gradually trickling 
in. The outlying attractions hold firmly enough up to 
this hour, but the magnet of the boulevards is strong- 
est in. the end. 

Montmartre, you may be sure, has been up to her old 
tricks. What "La Butte" has to learn about promis- 
cuous entertaining may be classed among the negligible 
quantities. Somewhere in that honeycomb of moulins, 
cabarets, penny-shows, spectacles, revues, tiny thea- 
tres with sensational rococo fagades and cafes with fan- 
tastic names dedicated to the riotous and the risque, 
diversion is bound to be forthcoming for any amuse- 
ment hunter blase with the usual. All the way down 
from the quaint little shops and crooked, cobble-stoned 
streets of the rustic upper region above the Moulin de la 
Galette to the blazing purlieus of the Place de Clichy 
and the Place Pigalle, there is always something on 
hand at midnight to amaze the neophyte. You may in- 
dulge or not, as inclination dictates, but you are pretty 
apt to be astonished, when you look at your watch, to 
see how long you have lingered. French ingenuity has 
lavished itself on every form of "attraction" from vau- 
deville and bats publics to papier-mache establishments 
devoted to parodies of Heaven and Hell. The Boulevard 
de Clichy is the heart of "La Butte," but the life it 
pumps along its arteries flows principally from one show 



344 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

to another. You may settle down on a bench under the 
trees, if you like, and resolve to view life only in the 
open in defiance of all the devils rampant in the neigh- 
borhood, but presently a flashing electric sign shrieks 
out an overlooked novelty and you find yourself say- 
ing, "Oh, well, since I am in Paris," etc., etc., and off 
you go. 

The excuse of being in Paris covers a multitude of 
sins. To do as the Parisians do serves purposes rarely 
indulged by Parisians themselves. It must be because 
"everything is different here." The frolicsome party 
in pink stockings who dropped her heel playfully on my 
bashful friend's shoulder in an aside of the "quadrille" 
at the Moulin Rouge was merely turning one of the 
tricks that pass as chic on Montmartre. She was of the 
assured and robust type that supports the "pyramid" 
in acrobatic feats, and the effect this had of dazing 
my friend arose rather from astonishment at its uncon- 
ventionally than delight at its skill. This much I 
gathered when he seized my arm and hurried me away 
and eventually choked out, "Do you know, I have to 
keep saying to myself 'Mullen, can this be you!" I 
think it was quite as hard on him at the Jardin de Paris, 
on the Champs-Ely sees, when he saw beautifully gowned 
Paris girls step out of the crowd and go down the chutes 
on their shoulders, screaming with laughter, in a whirl 
of skirts and flash of lingerie. In Paris ! What Ameri- 
can would dream of trying the tricks at home that he 



PARIS 345 

accomplishes with the ease of an expert on and under 
the tables of the "Rat Mort" or the Cafe Tabarin? 
It is a pretty problem as to whether he has saved up a 
special surplus of buoyancy for this city alone, or 
whether he has become infected with the natural high 
spirits of the Parisians and discovers too late that he is 
unable to control them as they do. The men who want 
"one more fling" before settling down head straight 
for Paris. It is probable if they could not get here that 
they would dispense with the fling altogether. 

Nor is the Rive Gauche without its votaries at mid- 
night. If the Latin Quarter stands for anything it is 
for unconventionality and comfortable enjoyment. If 
it is Thursday night the famous Bal Bullier is in full 
blast, and visitors are gazing down from the encircling 
boxes upon a jolly whirl of students in velvet coats and 
black slouch hats cutting fantastic capers in the quad- 
rilles with their latest bonnes and pretty models. 
Mimi and Musette are on the arms of Rudolphe and 
Marcel, "contented with little, happy with more." 
Those so disposed need not long remain uncompanioned 
if they take a turn among the tables under the trees 
of the enclosed garden, where from any cozy corner a 
soft voice at any moment may ask you for a cigarette. 
With so auspicious a start there is no reason, if you 
are that sort, why you should not be swearing eternal 
devotion before you have finished one citron glace. 

And no matter what night it is there is the old "BouF 



346 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

Miche' " as always, the resort and delight of artists and 
students from time immemorial. Would you sup, there 
are cafes, tavernes, brasseries, and restaurants of every 
price and description. You can have a flat du jour of 
venerable beef and a quantity of vin ordinaire for the 
modest outlay of one franc fifty; and your payment is 
received with many a cheery "Merci, monsieur," and 
"S'il vous plait," and hearty "Bon soir," and all the 
rest of that captivating civility that prevails to the 
last corner of the city. It is perhaps more agreeable 
to join the few remaining Henri Murger types among 
the crowds on the terraces of the Taverne du Pantheon 
or the Cafe Soufflot and listen to the vigorous talk that 
goes on over the little glasses of anisette and vermouth. 
It always seems to be that "hour of the aperitif" pro- 
nounced by Baudelaire, — 

"L'heure sainte 
de l'absinthe." 

When the flower-women and peddlers become too 
numerous before the cafe and you are weary with declin- 
ing nuts and nougats and ten-olives-for-two-sous, you 
may have a look into Les Noctambules or some other 
smoke-laden cabaret. The old-timers will grin behind 
their cigars at your " stung-again " expression when the 
polite gar con adds to the price of your first refreshment 
a franc or so for the consommation of what was adver- 
tised as a free show; but shortly you get the run of 
things and settle down to attend the chansonnier, who 



PARIS 347 

is the ox-eyed gentleman in the long beard who strides 
up to the consumptive piano and pours forth an original 
and impassioned rhapsody to our old friend "Parfait 
Amour. " 

A little of this goes a long ways. When you have 
politely heard him through, you are apt to think better 
of the boulevards and to start bowing your way into 
the street. How still and deserted the familiar places 
appear where by day is so much life and stir — such 
bustling about of stout market-women in aprons, such 
racing of delivery-boys in white blouses shouldering 
trays and boxes, such a concourse of the little fruit 
wagons they push and the two-wheeled carts they 
haul! In the little wineshops that dot the side streets 
one sees the portly proprietors in shirt-sleeves behind 
the shining zinc bars polishing glasses and chatting 
with their patrons, who are workmen in jerseys and cor- 
duroy trousers and cabmen in glazed hats and whips in 
hand. The loveliness of the Luxembourg Gardens fairly 
shouts for appreciation. One could scarcely linger too 
long under the chestnuts and sycamores, among the 
puffing fountains, the bronzes and marbles, the beds of 
dahlias and geraniums, the oleanders of the Terrace 
and the great stone urns that drip petunias and purple 
clematis. As you cross the Seine by the old Pont Neuf 
and lean a moment on its broad balustrade, kindly 
thoughts go out to the garrets that may now be shel- 
tering those pathetic stooping figures that bend all day 



348 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

above the long lines of book-shelves along the quays, and 
never buy, and you wish "good luck" to the good- 
natured book-sellers who never annoy them with im- 
portunities, but sit indulgently oblivious on the benches 
opposite and smoke their pipes and read their papers. 
So great a love of books will at least insure the old 
habitues from ever being included in that dread toll of 
two-a-day that the Seine regularly pays into the 
Morgue. 

It is like getting home to be back on the boulevards, 
— gay, gleaming, brimming, and confused. The air 
hums with the incessant shuffle of feet on the asphalt 
sidewalks and the pounding of hoofs on the wood- 
paved streets. The eyes ache with trying to miss none 
of the faces that flash past or any of the good-fellow- 
ship that abounds. The bubbling current drifts one 
along by little kiosks all a-flutter with magazines and 
newspapers, by advertising pillars flaming in play-bills 
of many colors, by crowded curb benches, glowing 
shop windows and table-lined cafe fronts. The wise 
drop out where the red lights mark tobacco bureaux 
and replenish their cigar-supply from government boxes 
with the prices stamped on them, rather than pay double 
for the same article in a restaurant later on. As you 
proceed to your favorite cafe it is immensely diverting 
to catch the glimpses of good cheer from those you pass. 
It is the same sort of thing in each case and yet some- 
how always different. On the red divans that extend 



PARIS 349 

around the rooms, with mirrors at their backs and petits 
verres on marble-topped tables before them, one beholds 
formidable arrays of bons vivants, all taking their ease 
with as hearty a will as the very kings of Yvetot. Mil- 
itary men with red noses and white imperials, politicians 
with pervasive smiles, litterati bearded like the As- 
syrian kings and wearing rosettes of the Legion of 
Honor, fat merchants in fat diamonds, and pot-hatted 
elegants who advertise smart tailors with as much ex- 
uberant grace as Roland himself. Happily for Paris, 
champagne is never out of season, and popping corks 
are held by many to make sweeter music than some of 
the orchestras in restaurant corners. The tide of life 
appears at flood. La Belle Ninette, of the Folies, tres 
fetee et tres admiree, fares daintily on out-of-season 
delicacies, thanks to the enduring ardor of the dis- 
tingue Marquis opposite, and drops candied fruits with 
the prettiest air imaginable into the nervous mouth of 
her favorite poodle, who is himself rejoicing in a new 
silver collar set with garnets. La seduisante Gabrielle, 
at an adjoining table, having once been a blanchisseuse 
herself, appropriately excels in a toilette of cloudlike 
gossamer, and is quite the adored of the rheumatic 
old party beside her, who has probably been doting on 
the ballet for two generations. The talk is largely of la 
belle this and la belle that, of the latest display of extrav- 
agance, the most recent spectacle, the most promising 
plays for the fall, or the drollest freaks of the new fash- 



350 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

ions. One sees foreign faces from all quarters of the earth, 
as though it were some kind of international congress, 
with both hemispheres fully represented. Long accus- 
tomed to seeing the world without leaving home, no- 
thing surprises Paris. A Chinese admiral, a Bedouin 
sheik, a Spitzbergen Eskimo, a lotus-lover of Tahiti, a 
Russian Grand Duke, or a millionaire hemp-grower of 
Yucatan pass practically unremarked. It would be a 
matter of no comment if "the Owl and the Pussy Cat 
went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat." Uamour is 
the point of common contact, and even so one has little 
chance against a rich old roue in the eyes of a "premiere 
danseuse or a far-visioned chanteuse of the Marigny. 
Business flourishes in the cafes. The harried waiters are 
kept bowing right and left and hurry off crying "tout 
de suite." Each open door sends out its vision of 
fluttering hands and shrugging shoulders and one hears 
an incessant rapid fire of "Bien!" "Dis done!" "Ecou- 
tez!" "Mais non!" " Precisement ! " "Allons!" "Oh, 
la la ! " — and so on and on. At Maxim's and the Olym- 
pia you would think there was a riot. Ice pails are as 
numerous as pulse-beats. 

When you reach your cafe at last, on the corner by the 
Opera House, perhaps, the ponderous maitre d'hotel 
assigns you a gargon, whose name is doubtless Francois, 
Gustave, or Adolphe, and who is very businesslike in 
short jacket and white apron. To him goes your order 
for a filet de beeuf, or perhaps a fricandeau, or, better 



PARIS 351 

still, a sole with shrimp sauce; and as you await its 
preparation you think with satisfaction of the self- 
appreciative observation of Brillat-Savarin, "One eats 
everywhere; one dines only in Paris." 

The life you then see about you is the usual thing here; 
to a stranger, novel and amusing; to a Parisian, alto- 
gether important and absorbing — an indispensable 
part of his existence. The setting is of soft carpets, 
palms, red velvet divans, chandeliers, and a crush of 
small, marble-topped tables. The place is crowded to 
the point of discomfort. A thin veil of smoke hangs over 
all. There are people in all kinds of street clothes and 
evening dress, ladies in opera cloaks and gentlemen in 
immaculate white waistcoats. There are ordinary indi- 
viduals and fantastic "types"; ruddy, portly bourgeois 
who shout "mon vieux" at each other and make a pro- 
digious racket generally; and nervous old beaux in tou- 
pees who fancy themselves in drafts. Occupations vary. 
Ladies are dining on champagne and truffles; the man 
at your elbow is writing a letter; another is looking 
through the illustrated papers; another has called for 
ink and paper and is casting up the day's expenditures; 
rubbers of dominoes and ecarte are being played out; 
there is a continual running to the telephone-booths and 
you hear the muffled calls of " Alio ! " — and all the time 
an orchestra is holding forth in the corner. The clatter 
of chairs and dishes and the confused rattle of conversa- 
tion is amazing. Wit whets on wit. Everybody has an 



352 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

opinion and is anxious to back it. Politicians bang their 
fists on the tables and address one another as "citoyen." 
Philosophers have it out, Cartesian against Hegelian. 
Poets quote from their latest lyrics and are tremendously 
applauded. Novelists dispose of rival books with a 
scornful shrug and a withering mot. And the playwright, 
by universal concession, is supreme cock of the walk. 

Presently you move a little out of all this and have a 
seat near the outer edge of the terrace, and begin to 
accumulate a pile of cups and saucers each with the price 
of the order burned in the bottom. So far as out of doors 
goes, you'are now the audience and the passing crowd the 
show. The number has dwindled, but in characteristics 
it remains the same — sociable, good-humored, easy in 
manner, and quick in intelligence. It will be seen to 
differ from the night throngs of other cities not only in 
variety and exuberance, but in dramatic qualities as 
well. Camelots rush up to you crying the latest editions 
of the evening papers, and suddenly, with furtive 
glances over their shoulders, thrust some questionable 
commodity under your nose and protest it is a bargain. 
Jolly parties sweep along, arm in arm, in lines that cross 
the sidewalk from house to curb. Lady visitors, with 
eyes full of excited delight, pause for a wistful glance 
down Rue de la Paix where the establishments of famed 
milliners and modistes stand in gloom, little dreaming 
that they may be touching elbows this minute with the 
very chefs des jupes, corsageres, and garnisseuses that 



PARIS 353 

they are to visit in the morning. Chic grisettes trip 
smilingly by, who have dined frugally at Duval's on 
chocolate and bread, to have another rose to their cor- 
sages. There are blase clubmen from the exclusive 
cercles of Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Ely- 
sees, and supercilious representatives of the American 
colony of the Boulevard Haussmann. Here comes 
D'Artagnan himself, capable and alert, arm in arm with 
blustering Porthos. Ragged voyous with shifty looks run 
to open the carriage doors. From time to time there 
saunters by in cap and cape that model policeman, the 
affable and accommodating sergent de ville, and if you 
look around for a camelot then, you will find him attend- 
ing very strictly to business. And so the fascinating 
procession troops merrily by : roaring students from the 
Boul' Miche', black-eyed soldiers in shakos and baggy 
red trousers, members of the Institute, pretty working- 
girls who handle their skirts with the captivating grace 
of comediennes, the shapely dress-models they nickname 
"quails," conceited figurantes from the cafes-concerts, 
famous models, cocottes, — frail daughters of Lutetia, — 
with complexions like Italian sunsets, impudent gamins 
chattering in unintelligible argot, dilettanti, poseurs, and 
the usual concomitants of beggars and thieves. What 
a jumble of happiness and misery! What an amazing 
spectacle, with the shimmer of silks and the glint of pearl 
ranged beside the mendicant in his rags ! 

What a wealth of material, too, for the capable ! One 



354 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

sees how Balzac found the best types of his "Human 
Comedy" on the boulevards; why Victor Hugo tramped 
them day and night and read shop signs by the hour in 
search for characters and the names to fit them; where 
Zola got the misery that he put between covers; where 
Moliere secured impressions that he transplanted so 
effectually to the stage. How Dumas must have known 
these streets ! And Flaubert and De Maupassant ! Nor 
are they exhausted yet; or ever will be. Where the en- 
tire gamut of the emotions is so incessantly run as here, 
vital, human material can never be lacking. 

As one o'clock wears round, it is easy to distinguish 
a change in the appearance of the crowd. 

" The tumult and the shouting dies, 
The captains and the kings depart." 

Something of that wan and forlorn look is beginning to 
appear that makes even these buildings themselves seem 
dejected and remorseful, by the time the street cleaners 
advance to flood the boulevards and the sky beyond 
Pere-Lachaise is paling to dawn. The heart says, "Let 's 
keep it up"; the body says, "To bed." And now, too, 
the crasser comedies of the fag end of the night receive 
their premieres. Amaryllis has lost her Colin and laments 
loudly with Florian: — 

"C'est mon ami, 
Rendez-le moi; 
J'ai son amour, 
II a ma foi." 



PARIS 355 

Mile. Fifi demands her carriage and bundles out into it, 
with the red-faced Baron hurrying after, carrying her 
amazing hat; and off they go toward the Champs- 
Ely sees. A stag party of revelers hails a victoria and 
sinks limply onto its cushions; and they, too, head for 
the Champs-Elysees with one hanging onto the cocker 
and reciting dramatically: — 

" Au clair de la lune, 
Mon ami Pierrot." 

Everyone smiles, for they know whither, they are bound. 
For Pre Catelon, of course, in the Bois de Boulogne, 
where they will chase the ducks and chickens around 
the little farmyard and make speeches to the mild-eyed 
cows and recover themselves gradually on mugs of cold 
milk. 

Clearly, it is time to depart. One does not want the 
lees of this sparkling cup. A man is a fool to abuse his 
pleasures — though this may sound naive at one 
o'clock in the morning. Go, while everything is still 
charming and delightful. The seasoned boulevardier 
can do it, for he has a viewpoint that is all his own ; it is 
by no means that of France, nor yet that of Paris by 
day, but of Paris by night — his Paris. It is opportun- 
ism applied to society. Not the mad, reckless apres- 
moi-le-deluge folly rout of the late Louises, but rather a 
conception of the importance of few things and the in- 
consequence of many. He sings with Villon: "Where 
are the snows of yester-year?" He searches the classics, 



356 AROUND THE CLOCK IN EUROPE 

and has "Carpe Diem" framed. He skims Holy Writ 
and puts his finger on "Sufficient unto the day is the 
evil thereof." "Life is poetry," quoth he, "in spite of a 
limping line here and there ! Why fuss over Waterloo, or 
the Place de Greve, or the guillotine, or the tumbrils that 
rattled up the Rue Roy ale? The present alone is ours; 
enjoy it to the uttermost! Life is beautiful and of the 
moment. Lights are sparkling. Fountains are splashing. 
The night is delicious with fragrance and enchanting 
with music and laughter. Join me! " he cries. "I raise 
my glass: To the lilies of France and the Bright Eyes of 
the Daughters of Paris /" 



THE END 



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